After retiring in 2014 from the healthcare industry, I took a month off to decide how I wanted to spend my time. My friend, Ellen Powell had been asking me to join the Boggs Tract Community Garden for a couple of years. I kept saying no because I didn't think I would have the time or energy to devote to gardening. But the idea stayed in the back of my mind.
So, when a 20x20 plot became available at the Boggs Tract Community Garden my husband and I jumped at the chance. Actually, I jumped at the chance and he came along to support me and help build something we could enjoy and be proud of.
My husband came from a family of farmers, but even though my family came from the South, by way of Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississipi I was clueless. If farming was in our history it was new to me. But, for several hears I had been collecting books on gardening, Square Foot Gardening, Lasagne Gardening, Container Gardening. You name it, I probably had the book.
Where to start? We decided to create our version of a Square Foot Garden. To save money we decided to start our own seedlings and turned our greenhouse window into a sanctuary for our seeds.
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| Here is our 20x20 foot plot in our version of a Square Foot Garden. Al is planting transplants we started at home. |
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| Al planting spinach, kale, chard and mustard greens. |
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| Our garden full of chard, cabbage, cauliflower, spinach, greens and herbs. The compost really is like "Black Gold" and plants love it. |
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Another picture of our 1st attempt at gardening at Boggs Tract Community Garden. More greens than we could handle. But we incorporated spinach, chard & kale in our morning smoothies. |
We took classes at Boggs Tract Community Garden and learned all about compost, getting the best soil, using and taking care of equipment, seeds, what to plant, how to treat pests without pesticides, raise chickens, bees...well I think you get the picture. The Community Garden, sponsored by Puentes was designed to make it easy for people with no experience to grow their own food. They provided a 20x20 foot plot, compost, irrigation, water and even tools to work with, all for the grand price of $40.00 a year!
We experimented with everything and underestimated how much food could be grown in just 400 sq. ft. Al (my husband) and I found out that 2 people couldn't eat all of the food we grew and we quickly ran out of space to put all of the produce. So we started by to share with friends.
We got our first seedlings planted at the end of November 2014 and by mid January 2015, we had kale, mustard greens, collard greens, beets and spinach.
We were joined by friends, Glenn & Louise McMillon who got a plot close to ours. Since November 2014, more friends have joined us, Dr. James Griffin and James & Dr. Amelia Eliott. Gardening is contagious. So, welcome to our blog and we'll be sharing how we started and how we got to where we are today,
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