Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Destination: Garden




What's that you say? I haven't posted since December? Yeah... I pretty much stink at blogging. I have been crazy busy this year. I enrolled in Master Gardener classes. (It's cooler than you think... or maybe I'm just finally comfortable in my geekiness...) I have finally finished classes (pending a final and like a billion volunteer hours.) That aside, I have been filled with inspiration to try my hand at a more serious garden this year. The above picture is my blank canvas. The only thing there is dirt... excuse me, SOIL, and weeds, or rather, plants that I would rather have living somewhere other than in my yard.

We have a steep hill that always washes out anything that might happen to grow there other than goat heads. We always find bits of glass or rusted nails that make their way to the surface. So... my plan? This is where my garden goes. My goal is to catch the rain. (Here in Texas water is a pretty coveted thing, and catching your own makes pretty good sense.) I've made my first rain barrel, but we have yet to install the gutters. Once that is done, I would like to set up a drip irrigation system and use gravity to water the garden on the slope. We are going to use an oldschool method of finding the contour of the hill and planting across it. I also am going to attempt to do a "lasagna style" garden that I learned in a permaculture class. Hopefully by the end of the summer I will have made wonderful progress and will have transformed this blank canvas into a masterpiece!