I Might Actually Get the Garden in the Ground

Posted by Jeremy in gardening, self-reliance, simple living

This morning I set out to finish prepping the "garden box" to receive the seedlings we started indoors.

You might ask, "Why is he starting seeds indoors in Southern California?"

That's an easy one. Between the afternoon winds, the meddling birds, and the ever so vexing ground squirrels, starting seeds in our yard would be fruitless, literally. So, we give our garden a bit of a head start in a grow tray with seeds planted in those fun little watch-'em-grow peat pellets you can pick up at Wal-Mart for about $5-6 (for a 72 pack).

What you see above is actually our second go around. You'll notice the beets, at the far right of the front tray, are quite leggy. That's because daylight indoors is a little less than optimal. So about 4 weeks ago, I set the trays outside to get a little sun and they were promptly pillaged by our winged friends. So, they were brought back in, the empty holes reseeded and again, we waited.

Now, most of our seedlings are ready to go into the ground. They have lost that baby-greens flavor the squirrels savor, the sprouted seeds are no longer a draw for the birds, and I am crossing my fingers that I located the box in a sufficiently protected location that the wind won't be my undoing.

The garden box is the epitome of "cheap". I spent less than $10 on 4 - 2"x8"x6' fence slats that I nailed the ends together to create a square. Then, knowing that this was very light-duty lumber, I rested a pair of cinder blocks on both sides of each corner to help keep it from falling apart. Mind you I have no illusions that this will be a long term fixture in my yard. Because we are renting I wanted something that could be easily dismantled when it came time to reclaim our deposit.
Because gopher have, heretofore, been an issue in our yard, I deemed it wise to preempt their mischief (or attempt anyways) by installing a bit of chicken wire on the bottom of the box. I don't, for a second, think that 1" chicken wire is gopher proof, but I am hoping it will at least hold them off long enough for this year's harvest. I also plan to try to head them off en-route to the garden with a great little tool that I borrowed from my mom that drops poisoned bait into their tunnels. I did a treatment a week ago and haven't seen any new mounds pop up anywhere; it's great stuff!

So, with the wire netting ready to go, I spread a layer of rabbit droppings and waste hay on top of the wire as an organic base to the box. I then added alternating layers of potting soil and topsoil spreading each out as I went.
I came up a little short on soil for this first box today. I was hoping to fill the rest using spoils from my compost pile, but alas it's not ready to be put to use just yet.