Garden Planning

Its the end of February. Winter has been long, snowy and cold. Here in Minnesota, there is still another good 30-60 days of winter left for us.

Yesterday at Menard's, I couldn't help myself when I saw vegitable seed packets for sales. Even though the snow is still 2 feet deep outside, I need to start thinking and planning for spring, if only for my own sanity.

Our previous attempts at gardening have been miserable failures, but what the hell. Hopefully, starting early this year will make all the difference. We will be digging up about 200 square feet of our grass lawn to make way for the garden.

Our family eats a lot of vegetables. Most of them come from the local grocery store, and are trucked in from God-knows-where. Hopefully by growing some of our own vegetables will help to reduce some carbon emissions, and also be fun for our kids.

High on the lsit of green projects on my drawing board this summer is a rain water harvesting system. I'm also kicking around the idea of piping some select grey water out to the garden. We also have a great source of clean water that presently just gets pumped directly into our sewer drain: our sump pump, which drains rain and melt water away from our foundation. Certainly this year, that must change, if for no other reason than to replenish the local ground water. But I think it would be very simple to use that water to irrigate the garden.

Much work needs to be done. When the warm weather comes, I'll be ready.

We've also decided that, for the second year in a row, I will NOT pay Chemlawn to soak my lawn with weed-killing chemicles. Also, I will again NOT be moving the back 1/2 acre of our lawn and plan to continue the experiment of trying to return it to native grasses.