Overview

Gouge 2013 Garden

This is my first blog, and my first attempt at a garden.  After my recent divorce, I decided to start something new and fresh.  I have never enjoyed vegetables all that much, but my stepdaughter purchased a slow cooker for me, and this just kind of snowballed.  Slow cooking was an easy way for father of two boys to cook and plan meals.  I immediately noticed the huge difference between using fresh produce and canned veggies.  I also noticed how the price of produce was going through the roof.  I had been reading a book on root cellering, and was amazed at the sheer number of vegetables that I had never tried, or even heard of.  I decided to start a garden.  By happenstance, I chose a book on square foot gardening in Barnes and Noble.  Next step was to determine which veggies were worth growing, and which I should pass on...so I started hitting the produce section heavy, trying everything that was potentially interesting to me.

Here is an overview of what I'm growing:

I know every book and website said to start small, but this is small compared to what I started with.  The brown boxes above indicate that they are completely enclosed (i.e. they have a wood bottom).  The uncolored boxes above are bottomless so the roots can go into the soil below the raised bed.

I built most of my boxes over the winter.  I set everything up in the Spring.  I'm currently fencing in (black chain length fence) the portion above that's blue.