Welcome to My Garden!

Hello there!

The purpose of this blog is two fold.  First, I want to document the things I do in my garden, what works, what didn't, when I plant things, when I harvest them, that sort of thing.  Second, I have about a million questions that I've been posting on Facebook and figured I could post them here too.

Also, I like blogging.

I should probably talk a little bit about myself and my garden and yard.  I live in the southeaster suburbs of Columbus, Ohio, and so I have a bit of yard in which to plant stuff. The question has been for a while "What stuff?" and it's been an ongoing process in the five-six years we have lived there. We have done a few things, but it's just been in the last year or so that a firm plan has developed.

I had planned to start this blog when I started this year's garden, however, much like this year's garden, I'm getting kind of a late start.  This introductory post will thus serve also as a summary to date of what's been done.

The yard itself faces south, and is about 1600-1800 square feet.  It slopes a bit downward, especially in the southwestern corner.  That is the location of our future pond.  So far I have:

• One 4' x 6' bed of onions and potatoes (6) planted in early May
• One 4' x 6' bed of tomatoes (3) and peppers (3) just planted this week
• Raspberry bushes planted I think our second year there
• One dwarf Fuji apple tree that produces teeny-tiny apples and I believe has been mislabeled, planted our second year
• A pot on the deck with basil, oregano, thyme, sweet woodruff, lavender, rosemary, and parsley, planted around May 15.

Future plans include:

• A third 4' x 6' bed for beans, zucchini, squash, broccoli or whatever else
• Two pots for radishes and carrots
• 4 pallets to turn in to lettuce and spinach tepee kind of things 
• One pallet for strawberries
• Space for a grape arbor

Current "challenges"

• Ants, ants, ANTS everywhere.  The entire subdivision is built on what might be the world's largest ant colony.  I will be picking up diatomaceous earth as soon as my local place gets some in.
• Swallowtail butterfly caterpillars have eaten my parsley
• The usual...time, money, etc.

We do also have plans for more decorative flower beds and such, but we have decided that food gardens are first.  While I am hoping to get a great deal of our food during the summer and into the fall (I have successfully canned tomatoes in the past), I think it will be a while on our learning curve before we can rely on that. As we are only a family of three adults (me, my spouse, and his mother), it might be barely enough.  Eventually I would love to live out on many acres so I can have goats and chickens.  We can have three chickens however once we get all the other things set up, I don't know that we will have room for them.  We cannot have goats in the city limits. 

I digress.  I would love to be fairly sustainable, and maybe we will get that way, but I'm not going to obsess over it.  We also have had rabbits off and on, and while I don't really want them to have all my crops, I'm not going to obsess about that either.  Kroger and Giant Eagle are right down the street, so we aren't going to starve.

The point of all this, really, is to get more in touch with the rhythm of the land that has allowed me to live on it for a time.  My husband and I are pagans, Druids, specifically; paying attention to the land and the cycles of the seasons is more than a hobby for us.  Being in touch with the Earth is our sacrament, and there's nothing I like better than digging my hands into the beds when I plant (no gloves), or sitting on my back deck or around our fire ring, with a glass of wine or horn of mead, with my spouse and my dog, and just feeling the energies.

That's what this little experiment is really all about.  I hope you join us for the ride and enjoy!

(Also big props to my friends Kim, Irisa, and Val for name suggestions.  One of Val's won!)