Anyone Garden?

I am an avid gardener.  I'm also the coordinator of a large organic community garden. I am getting super excited for the upcoming growing season. I started my seeds a few weeks ago and everything is growing nicely. I've got my community garden plots and back yard raised beds all planned out on paper along with my flower bed. 

I'm starting an asparagus bed and a strawberry bed this year. They will take at least a couple years, but I can't wait until they are ready so we can enjoy them for years to come. I am also thinking about planting two or three blueberry bushes. 

Anyone else garden?

I don't garden, but it's one of my goals.  My paperwork is going in to the insurance company this week, and surgery is tentatively scheduled for May 14th.  Right now at my current weight, I can't get up and down, and don't have much stamina.  I'm hoping by October I'll be in shape for some leaf raking, and maybe plant some bulbs.  Gardening is something I've always admired.

That's awesome! Gardening is incredibly rewarding. 

I totally get how you feel about the getting up and down. Last summer I was very heavy for my frame and a chunk of it was some new fairly new weight I was working to back off. I had a very hard time doing anything. I gardened anyway, and did most of it myself, but I relied on my hubby to do a lot. I used a 2' kids step stool as a garden bench. I sat on it for weeding & planting. It was even annoying to get up from that, but if I would have sat on the ground or kneeled I would have never been able to get back up without help and great difficulty.

I am amazed that this fear is now gone. I still have a lot to lose, but I sit down on the floor with my daughter to play and can easily get back up. It's awesome!  This is one thing about gardening I look forward too that I didn't mention, but is on my mind. Kneeling on my garden pad and sitting on the ground to work. I'll be able to get stuff done much faster overall, but also because I won't me moving around my stool as I work. I can just crawl around :)

I've been reading about the Lasagna gardening method.. are you familiar with this?

I've read up on it. I do something similar, but it's different. In my community garden plots I do no-till gardening. It is so much better for the soil. Adds nutrients year after year, keeps the worm channels in tact, which softens up the soil, and more. It relies on laying heavy mulch year after year, then just parting areas to plant your seeds/starters. The mulch (I use wheat straw) also keeps most of the weeds away and helps retain the moisture which means less watering. Yay, less work for me, especially since I need to haul water from the well at the community garden. My two plots there equal 30' x 40' so when I do water it's a 1-2 hour job minimum.

In my back yard my food producing gardens are raised beds. I use a lot of the principles of Square Foot gardening, but I don't follow all of the rules. For example, I don't use the layers of vermiculite and other things. I just have soil mixed with compost from the city covered in straw mulch for weed/water control. I use organic chicken manure at both places for fertilizer. That stuff is magic.

I really enjoy gardening but took a year a couple years off intensive gardening whilst the twins were babies.  I'm really going to go at it again this year despite our minuscule back yard.

I'd love to try out some more square foot gardening this year.  

When I was in Belgium we had the worst snail and slug problems, but I found that if I had a dense row of Marigolds they were so busy eating those flowers (which came back faster than they could eat them) they never touched the rest of my crops.  Best use of 'natural' gardening techniques ever.  The pots of beer could never keep them out like the flowers did ;)

I've never tried growing asparagus, but I like drilling wholes in my plant boxes and growing the strawberries out the sides, makes the picking a lot easier.

If I had twins I'd take time off, too!

I almost do the official square food gardening, but with some changes. Straw works for slugs and snails, too, but in a different way. They cannot crawl on the straw because the sharp ends cut them/kill them, so they stay away. Slugs can be a problem here, too. I use Marigolds to keep as many rabbits & deer out of my garden. They will still come in, but not as many do because they don't like the smell of them.

I've seen examples of growing strawberries through holes in the side of raised bed. It's a great idea to grow more without using as much ground space.

I would love to have a vegetable garden, but unfortunately I have no areas in my yard that get sunshine for most of the day. I've tried a couple of times to do some minor container gardening on one level of my deck, but back when I was at my highest weight I didn't really have the energy to keep up with anything. I'm hoping to try a few containers again this year.

I do love looking at seed catalogs and planning gardens, though!

Certain veggies need that full sun to produce the best, but there are a lot of things that will do well with only a part days sun.

http://organicgardening.about.com/od/vegetablesherbs/a/shade veggies.htm

I saw pretty corrugated planters that I would love for my husband to make for me.  I sure hope his wls gives him tons more energy because I keep coming up with projects :)