Dig a garden for Victory!

Just don't depend on me, 'cuz then the terrorists have already won.

I'm giving this garden thing another try this year, with a little bit more planning and education this time. I learned several things from last year's fiasco, which I guess is a good thing. 

Here are the things that I will not do this year:

1. try to share garden space with Oscar. We will each have our own raised bed. Oscar is a tomato maniac and he needs an entire bed just for those. 

2. Use a product called "Gardening Soil--great for fruits and flowers!" to try to grow root crops, and then wonder why none of the radishes, carrots, or beets are growing. (Hint--the nutrients needed for fruits and flowers are different than those needed for root crops.) Longtime readers may remember the pornographic radish from last year; that was grown in what has since become Oscar's Tomato Madness raised bed. 

3. Use flattened cardboard boxes as the barrier between the grass and the garden. Supposedly, the cardboard works to smother the grass, but I didn't have much success with that. My friend Latin Man gave me some landscape fabric, so I will use that this year.

4. Build the raised bed out of cinder blocks instead of lumber. It really was a great idea but it didn't work out for these reasons: a) they were not mortared together, and the ground was a bit uneven so there was some shifting from the weight of the soil, b) concrete is really porous and the bed dried out really fast

Here's what I will do this year:

1. Construct a 4' x 8' bed from lumber generously given to me by my friend HippieChick. (I'd asked her if she had any scrap lumber for building a bed, and she didn't but she's a very encouraging soul for anything gardening related so she bought me some "scrap" lumber for my birthday. Think that's a weird birthday gift? I don't. She once got a truckload of horsesh*t as a birthday gift and she was thrilled!)

2. Make the garden soil mixture per SFG recommendations.

3. Plant some pots with flowers that attract beneficial bugs and bees, and set these around the garden.

Oh well, we shall see. Wish me luck.