The Beginning

October 2008 - We determined it would be in our best interest to re-purpose much of our back yard, which was primarily lawn, and roses, into an "edible" landscape.  Our reasons for this included a desire to be more self reliant, increasing the nutritional value of our produce, reducing our carbon footprint, (and our grocery bill) and following the teachings of our religious leaders.

November 2008 - While we weren't ready to plant anything, we decided to get ready by starting to compost all organic waste.  We built two compost keepers out of 1" mesh wire for a cost of about $16.00, one of our goals is to keep everything as cost effective as possible.  Everything organic went into the compost keepers, all the shells from the Cioppino we enjoyed over the winter, egg shells, onion skins, avocado and banana peels, leaves, grass clippings, you name it, the only thing we didn't include were weeds.

February 2009 - We were anxious to begin planning our garden and decided to educate ourselves by attending classes at what we consider to be the premiere local nursery, Alden Lane Nursery in Livermore California.  We attended classes on soil preparation, requirements of organic gardening, and pest control, both traditional and organic.  With these classes we felt we were ready to plan our garden, we consulted several books from the library to identify the best crops for our area, and understand their growth habits.  Now we knew what would grow best in our area, and how best to organize the garden based on the needs of the crops.

March 2009 - We began the process of re-purposing our back yard, we converted about 40% of our back yard to an "edible" landscape and did not give up any of the roses or other strictly decorative plants, we only converted lawn.  We did shift some roses in order to create more room but they have all lived through the move!  Once we identified where we wanted our "garden to grow", we set about making raised beds, this is critical in our area as our natural soil is "clay rich". 

Once the raised beds were constructed we began to enrich the soil. We used a fabulous soil amendment, Bumper Crop, which contains yummy things for the soil and your veggies, like chicken manure and bat guano.  We also turned in to the soil E.B. Stone Natural Granular Gypsum, again for the clay, and E.B. Stone Organic Tomato and Vegetable Fertilizer, we were striving for very happy rich soil!

We also started our seed planting in March, preparing for April planting of beets, beans, squash, and carrots. 

April 2009 - The tomatoes we ordered from Ginger of Sun Catcher Harvest arrived last week and we planted them immediately,  Our tomatoes include; Abraham Lincoln Hybrid, Stupice, Super San Marzano, Gingers Golden Delicious, Sungold, and Black Krim.  I can't wait!