Tabla Rasa

Spring is nearly here and the anticipation for the growing season is mounting. I am in my third year of growing vegetables and I hope to have the most successful season yet. I live in the suburbs, surrounded by driveways, cars and small rectangular pieces of lawn. In this mix I will add in a 4'x24' raised bed of vegetables to include: tomatoes, pepeprs, watermelon, pole beans, cucumber, beets, radishes, carrots, onions, BASIL and another 3x6 raised bed of potatoes grown in seaweed.

My gardening experience is minimal. It all started with Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal Vegetable Miracle which I recommend to everyone that even has a remote interest in food and food culture. This motivated me to start my own garden.

My first year of gardening I bought a few packs of tomato and pepper seeds at a local garden store, not realising that for my needs I only really needed one seed package, and proceeded to start from seed a large number of these plants. I was really jumping in with both feet. I bought a grow light, seed trays and had a nice little seedling growing area. My first problem was that I started too early and my second problem was that I kept the light too high. This resulted in tall, lanky plants. The problem? Well the first time I left them outdoors I lost about 50% to a mild wind. I had even realised my mistake and tried to transplant them to a deeper pot.

We had planned on moving that year so I knew I needed to have a mobile garden. What I didn't realise was that because there was less soil, they really needed to be watered quite often. I neglected to do that so at the end of the season I had a fairly small crop. But It was a learning experience and I had fun in the process.

The second year I received a book called "Square Foot Gardening" by Mel Bartholomew. Its a simple, no nonsense book that is perfect for the home gardener. It shows how to maximize your crop with minimal wasted space. I wanted to take things a little more carefully that year so I only did a 4x4 raised bed and a few planter boxes. I also bought ALL transplants. I bought the tomato plants at the local farmers market and the rest at a local garden centre. Overall the harvest was a massive success. I was still hoping for a larger bounty though, enough to make a few meals with! We did get lots of tomatoes and made some delicious pesto with the three basil plants we had.

So now here we are at year three of my vegetable garden. I bought a significant number of gardening books this winter season. I will post pictures of a synopsis of what I took from some of the books at some point. I read "Farm City" by Novella Carpenter and "One Hundred Mile Diet" this winter. Both worth a read.

Im planning to post pictures of Before and After the creation of my mega-box (4'x24'). Lets hope it fits on my tiny plot.

This year my plan is to have a mix of plants that I start from seed and transplants. I bought my Seeds from 3 places so far:
1) http://www.annapolisseeds.ca/ - Annapolis heritage seeds.
2) http://www.veseys.com/ - A well known garden place in PEI
3) http://www.halifaxseed.ca/ - A local garden centre

My transplants will come from
1) The local farmers market and
2) Sea Change Naturals (seachangenaturals AT gmail DOT com)

The potatoes are another story. I will be trying to grow potatoes using the "lazy bed" method. People have often done this using a cover of hey, but I have heard people having loads of success with seaweed (no dirt, no bugs) and since we're by the ocean, I will try it that way. I will make sure to log my progress.