Le Beau Jardin - Week 1
Ironically, or not so much, the english to french translation of "the beautiful garden" is le beau jardin. Since Beau is my name, how could I pass up that kind of a translation? And the garden, while many might argue isn't quite beautiful yet, is beautiful to me.
I've been waiting almost three years to have a place where I could dig around in the dirt. Lack of a fence then two years of graduate school put me off for a bit, but I'm roaring back to my green-thumb life and my amateur gardener hat is back in place.
What's particular about my garden is that I'm following the Square-foot gardening method, made famous through this book which was recommended to me be a great friend of Jeff's. She encouraged and inspired me to make my own soil, raise the beds, and really take the book to heart. I built the raised beds last fall and had them half filled with a compost/top soil/peat moss mixture. Last week, I had a fresh load of compost delivered and finished them off yesterday. Having a bug up my ass today, I hauled Jeff down to the farm and garden center just to look. A butt load of cheddar later, I have just under half the garden in, focusing on tomatoes and herbs with a few plots of lettus today. I think I'm about four weeks too late on the lettus as it likes the cooler weather but I thought I'd try to sneak in a batch and see what happens. I think I should have the rest of the garden out next weekend and then concentrate on the flowers for the porch and deck.
Fabulous,fabulous, your Dad to a T! And if your Mom was here, she would be picking at it and bossing you around!
It looks great. I hope I get an invite to see it in person! I do have two questions though. The first is how you gonna keep it wartered all summer especially if you miss a weekend going to the house? Next, I couldn't make out all your herbs from the picture, but I hope you planted cilantro. I've discovered that fresh cilantro and garden tomatos is even better than basil and tomatos!!! (I know that sounds Anti-Italian, but I must speak the truth!)
Steve,
First of all, you have a STANDING invite. Don't wait for me to call or we'll never see one another. That being said, I'll give you a call and get you and your hubby over ASAP. We miss you guys.
Cilantro is the one herb that the Farm and Garden Center didn't have, strangely enough. I'm heading out to WalMart and Homo Depot this weekend to find it. Thanks for the reminder, though. It'll be in this weekend.