This Year's Garden

Each month members of the Etsy Bloggers Team participate in a Blog Carnival. This month, one of the questions was:


Planning a garden this year? Tell us how you plan or prepare.  Do you start your own seeds?


I have had a garden every year except one of the past sixteen years.  When we moved to our little 'piece of heaven' in 1993, my husband and I inherited a circular vegetable garden and wonderful soil.

Each spring we design the garden using a ball of string and lime.  The string is tied to a post in the middle of the garden.  Then one of us walks to the outer edge of the garden with the ball of string held taut while the other puts down a thin line of lime along the taut string so that we know where to dig our walkways and  create individual plots for the veggies.  We continue doing this around the garden until all of the walkways are marked.  

I like to put down straw in my walkways and between plants whenever I can.  I've learned over the years that it really helps to cut down on the amount of weeding that needs to be done.


The only seeds that I use are those that can be sown directly in the soil once all likelihood of frost is gone.  This includes kale, lettuce, green beans, cucumbers and winter and summer squash.  For tomatoes and peppers and eggplants, I usually just buy the plants.