This year's home improvement project is the exterior of our home; specifically, the landscaping. Soon, we won't have to worry about people losing their children in our backyard! We have a couple of things to do in preparation: bury some wires, remove a stump (which was covered in layers of dirt and has been fondly called "the pitcher's mound" since we moved in), add some sprinklers and plan the garden. Most of the manual labor falls to my husband, but planning the garden - that's my thing. And since we're starting from seed, now is the time to get everything in order. I've been working on it all weekend long and thought I'd share some of the helpful things I've found in case you might be wanting to plant a garden this year, too.
My indispensable reference book: Rodale's Ultimate Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening. There's an entry for everything you can imagine, from flowers to produce and even lawn care.
How to Build a Raised Garden Bed: Including installing drip irrigation.
How to do Square Foot or French Intensive Gardening: This site gives a great start to making the most of your garden bed, teaching you how to help small garden plots yield tons of produce.
Heirloom Seeds: So many varieties!
How to Build a Trellis: For vining plants, like peas, cucumbers and beans.
GardenWeb Forums: The best online source for any questions you might think of regarding gardening. Experts and novices alike gather here.
Do you have any garden planning tips you'd like to share? Please leave them in the comments!
{images via Sunset}
Your garden will be fabulous (make sure Craig let's Andrew in on some of that fun manual labor...really, he'd love to help).
Our backyard is too small for a garden, so I'll live vicariously through you and yours. I can't wait to see pictures of your progress. Good luck!
Posted by: Chelsey | 02/22/2011 at 09:00 PM
Working on the outside of the house is also on our "to-do" list. We have a very small backyard so we cannot plan a garden, but we've several times veggies and fruits in pots... It is fun too!
Posted by: FunkySteph | 02/25/2011 at 02:01 PM
As normal I was searching on the web for a few fresh articles on gardening. Being that spring is merely around the corner I believed that there would be several new posts. However I was incorrect, so it was lucky that I found this post.
Posted by: Hose Reel | 03/06/2011 at 11:51 PM
I don't usually spend a lot of time online reading blogs or article unless the are about football or cycling. So this quite the unexpected bonus to come across this post.
Posted by: Gardener | 03/14/2011 at 01:02 AM