Doesn’t this look like a whole bunch of zombies are just going to rise up and eat your brainz? If you turn you head just so, you’d swear you can see an arm break through the dirt with the fingers stretching up to the sky.
Maybe not.
Maybe it’s just too many hours in front of a video game. Must stop now.
In any case, this is my new garden. Not the whole thing mind you, that would be ridiculous. But my friend E and I have signed up for two plots in the new community garden sponsored by one of the local churches and the local college as community outreach.
The grounds crew at the college plowed up a soccer field with a couple hundred 5×20 foot plots. $20/plot pays for the initial tilling, a water supply and a storage shed for tools. No charge for leftover soccer balls.
We even got free seeds from an organic seed company for beans, lettuce, herbs and something else I can’t remember.
Sounds inexpensive doesn’t it. $20 and some free seeds and we’ve got a garden. This sure beats spending $30 – $40 a week at the farmers’ market during the summer.
I bet all you gardeners out there are laughing your heads off. You know, don’t you. You know the plot and the seeds are just the tip of the asparagus so to speak.
Having funded several leisure activities in my lifetime (knitting, cross stitch, woodworking, reading, biking, spinning, skiing), gardening ranks right up there with tons of essential and enticing tools and hardware. The trick is distinguishing between what’s necessary and what’s hitting the emotional squee gotta have eet! button.
First there’s the lumber and corners to make raised beds. Maybe we could have just nailed the boards together but the corners made the job easy and Jack says the beds will last longer this way. Or we could just do all the gardening in the plot itself (some of which we’ll do). But raised bed gardening is going to be so much easier than digging in our clay soil that I didn’t even consider not doing it. Then we added hardware cloth to the bottom of the beds to keep moles, voles and other burrowing animals from eating our crops from underneath. So, necessary.
Total cost: about $30-$35 for each bed.
Not considering Jack’s labor, but that can be bought for the price of a chocolate cake and fresh veggies this summer.
Then came the organic compost to fill those beds. Once we have a compost bin, we can make our own compost and we shouldn’t ever have to buy much again. But for now we need something to fill those beds. Buying and hauling bags of compost from the box store isn’t feasible when a single bag of compost weighs 40 pounds and we need to fill two seven-foot beds. Talk about back-breaking and labor-intensive.
Three cubic yards of organic compost delivered will cost about $150. There will be plenty to fill the beds, some pots and amend the rest of the plots to improve the heavy soil. Again, necessary.
And then filling the beds one wheelbarrow at a time. Fortunately, we own a wheelbarrow and can borrow another, so that expense is off the list. Necessary and free.
But why or why wasn’t I smart enough to foresee this 5 years again and buy a pickup truck instead of a stupid car? Life would be so much easier now.
Then there’s the shade cloth. The bird netting. Bamboo poles, watering cans, twine, pole connectors. Fertilizer. More seeds. Trellises and teepees and tomato cages. Garden gloves, gardening hat, boots for the muck. Vegetable starts like tomatoes, watermelons, sweet potatoes, onion sets, blueberry and gooseberry bushes.
A compost bin.
The tears over crops lost to deer, rabbits, squirrels.
I haven’t added up the cost yet but I’ll track it just out of curiosity. It might even be fun at the end of summer to compare yield vs. expense and see how much that tomato cost.
It reminds me of this book.
And I can’t wait to get started. The gardens open this weekend; E and I are itchin’ to go.
/bounces
Totally awesome! I am so with you on this. Initially it is a lot of work , but it really pays off in the end. I have raised 3×3 foot cedar raised beds most of which have basically rotted out after 10 years of use. I now use the black plastic ones from Gardener’s Supply and have had good luck with those. The remaining beds will be replaced as they die off to rot. I cracked up at the need vs want regarding veggies and etc… to plant. Real estate is expensive in our plots-lol- and the yields need to be good/ worth the effort. Happy Gardening!
It’s exciting and fun anyway. You will have a blast and that’s not counting entertainment and exercise value;-D
Woo Hoo!
Get your Jack to make you some tomato cages out of turkey wire. Much better and bigger than the ones you can buy. Btw, you don’t have gloves? ;^)
xo
That sounds wonderful, but also – a LOT of work! I’m with you on the raised bed, we have nothing but clay here and it’s like digging rocks.
Oh yeah, $64 tomatoes are about right and the birds really appreciate the effort. The real secret is that it’s fun and rewarding to actually see the stuff grow. Now if you can convince me that all those tiny seeds will really grow into big plants so that restraint is called for when planting. Send pictures of your first sprout!
Have fun, and enjoy the results.
Though your blueberries and gooseberries would be better off at home – they’d take up the whole plot…
Great to see the ground-breaking! I’m looking forward to more photos. And I’d take the minivan over a truck any day except I know how Dad is about getting dirt in his car
Maybe canning is the next leisure activity?
Do I spy a chain link fence around the entire community garden? If so, consider yourself BLESSED! No deer, perhaps no rabbits. If you lived here, the fence would also prevent bear damage. (Srly. State of WI DNR reimburses farmers for wildlife damage to their crops caused by deer, bear, wild turkeys, and one other animal I can’t remember right now.)
As an accountant I would urge you to spread the cost of the equipment over their expected life, which is gonna be several/many years. Few worthwhile endeavors do not involve a fair investment of time, money, and labor up front. But the benefits are HUGE!
I went to a presentation this week by this guy: http://www.crcworks.org/; “Finding Food in Farm Country” or something like that. Local food, sustainable methods, a local and sustainable economy. Go, you!
Luckily, it’s not just about the food. It’s about the fun, the satisfaction, some physical exertion, stretching and bending, good flavors.
I’m super excited for you!
[...] little knitting going on, every spare moment is spent either in the house garden or up at the community garden. Or else I’m reading about gardening or surfing the net looking for plants, products or [...]