It snowed yesterday. That's Colorado for you. Fickle and stubborn and coy.
Oh well. It's supposed to be more summer-like today. I guess the upshot is that once the snow melts, we'll have serious irrigation for our beds. I need to get the onions in the ground ASAP if they're going to be ready by the wedding on July 19.
Oi vey. We had to retroactively add drainage holes to our raised beds today. The snooty woman at the gardening store chided us for not having proper drainage holes (and for growing in six inches of soil rather than 12). I was fully intent on ignoring her until I realized that Mel advised the same holes. I must have missed that part.
Since the beds are full of dirt already, it was quite a chore to push the dirt to the side (several different ways within each square foot) and drill a hole.
But that's the labor of love, I suppose.
The temperature drops tomorrow, so I plan on planting some of our cooler weather spring stuff. Good times.
Quite honestly, I can't compare the two different approaches from practical, empirical knowledge. When I decided to start a garden, I sought out my favorite kind of knowledge: Book Knowledge. I scoured online bookstores for good gardening books. I was roped in by the back cover of All New Square Foot Gardening:
"If you want to grow more vegetables--and flowers--in less space, All New Square Foot Gardening is for you. Author Mel Bartholomew takes you through his proven Square Food Gardening method adopted by satisfied gardeners for more than twenty-five years. Now in All New Square Food Gardening, Mel unveils ten new improvements that save you more time and more money--all with a lot less work. And with All New Square Foot Gardening, you no longer have to worry about weeds and fertilizer! Gardeners everywhere enthusiastically endorse Mel Bartholomew's revolutionary Square Food Gardening method."
The introduction to the book talks about Mel's experience with a community garden. He said people were zealous gardeners for about the first three Saturdays. After that, when the real work set in, their enthusiasm waned.
He designed a way to grow flowers and vegetables in raised beds using carefully mixed soil (from compost, vermiculite, and peat moss). Some of the benefits are as follows:
I convinced Matt (without much persuasion needed) to make the trek to the gardening store. We are now armed and ready to plant:
It's beautiful outside.
Of course, since I live in Colorado, it could easily be snowing tomorrow.
Alas, I took advantage of the transitory warmth to do a little gardening. Or, pre-gardening, I should say.
At the end of last season, I pretty much left the raised beds in utter disarray. I was discouraged by the garden's lack of proliferation last season, and I was cold.
So today I pulled out all the old plants, as well as the new weeds. I turned the soil and evened it out in the beds. They look fantastic. And it took me less than an hour. Hooray for square-foot gardening! There's so much less growing space required, and my soil is pretty much perfect without much effort.
Next steps: Go to Echter's, the premier garden store in Denver, to seek out expert advice about what I can grow that will be ready in time for my self-catered wedding...
Matt and I had a bit of a tiff last night. He picked up four bottles of Naked juice, overjoyed that they would only cost us $14. I didn't say anything about it, but apparently my face did.
He confronted me.
I explained, "It's just that I don't really see the point in spending money on fruit juice. If you want the benefits of juice, why not just eat the fruit itself? It costs less. There's more fiber. And you aren't condoning the production of more plastic."
He proceeded to read the salubrious ingredients, including things like spiralina.
I argued that our venerable ancestors did not drink spiralina out of plastic bottles. He could've argued that they also had reduced life expectancies, but instead he tried to argue that they got more nutrients because they were hunters and gatherers.
In my mind, the issue at stake is that we, as a society, tend to have such narrow focus. It happens in important areas, like the Civil Rights Movement. For example, there was rampant sexism within the movement because everyone was so focused on racial equality instead of just equality for all people.
It happens in other ways, too. Like the organic food fad. People were rah-rah organic food because it's so much healthier, and yet we neglect to realize that the carbon dioxide that's created by shipping organic apples from New Zealand is actually very bad for our health.
The movement for a better world is all connected. Reducing our negative impact on the world also reduces our negative impact on ourselves. We've got to look beyond the immediate effect on ourselves and look at the broader implications of our actions.
Eating a locally-grown orange and dumping the rind in the composter is good for us and the environment.
Doug Fine proclaims (from the very top of his soapbox) that if he (a Brooklyn-ite who was weaned on Domino's Pizza) can live locally and get oil out of his life, anybody can.
His argument is mainly compelling (despite the fact that he lives on a 41-acre ranch in New Mexico and seems to sustain himself through the proceeds from his book deal). I walked away from the presentation with the following resolutions:
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