Suburban Gardening - Our first steps

Nearly two years ago when our townhouse was for sale, I had some pretty specific requirements:  Sell this to buy a REAL house....with a yard the kids can run crazy in and I can build gardens and plant flowers wherever I want.  This may seem like a standard wish or requirement for most people. BUT, not in a townhouse that is run by a homeowner's association that doesn't allow fences, personal children's playgrounds, or gardens.  Really, no customization of any kind.  Period.  When we were the standard DINKs (Double Income No Kids) in town, it was perfect.  We spent most of our time working, playing sports in the city, and didn't want to spend any of our own time actually maintaining our property such as landscaping and snow removal.  Again, it was perfect.  But....as what normally happens when you have children, our perspective changed.

As soon as the twins were old enough to crawl and soon run, the exterior of my home became nearly as important as the inside of my home.  Inside, we finished our basement and added a toy room.  Outside, our hands were tied.  There was a large common yard, but no personal space.  Our daughter once even fell down a neighbor's window well.  Yep, that was the straw that broke the camel's back.  No privacy.  No security. No safety.  And again....no ability to plant a garden and customize anything we wanted.  At one time in our lives, this was perfect - but by today, it wasn't for us anymore.

So luckily, we sold our townhouse and bought a 'real' house.  You know, one with our own walls, a yard we and we alone were responsible for, and one in which we owned a yard as far as the eye could see....where we could do whatever we wanted!  The first year we owned the home, we closed on it mid summer and didn't have a full growing season to take advantage of.  Therefore, 2011 was decided on to be 'our year'.


I started planning ahead.  For Christmas 2010, I asked for a wheelbarrow!  And guess what my dad got me - a great 'no flat wheelbarrow'.  I'm guessing it was from my ole' alma mater of employment: Rural King!

For my birthday, he gave me some great vegetable plants straight from my other alma mater: The Lincolnwood FFA Chapter.  He also gave me a great new steel rake!  So, all I needed was my garden.

After much deliberation of the type and size of garden, we decided upon raised beds.  Both of our neighbors really over-fertilize their yards...ha ha...we're the ones that grow the forest of dandelions!  So, if we were going to grow food to sustain our family, fertilizers and pesticides didn't seem like the way we wanted to go.  Also, many other benefits of raised beds quickly became apparent.  We also started hearing about the concept of SFG, Square Foot Gardening.  So, high density farming in tight quarters, essentially.  We decided on 2 - 8'x4' beds, or 64 square feet of garden space. 

Chris built each of the beds himself with 8'x2"x12" boards made of a unique type of pressure treated wood that is environmentally friendly and does not contain arsenic....so no chance of leaching into the foods we are growing.  We built the boxes 12" deep to allow for deep growth of root vegetable products.  Chris worked on these last weekend, and now they are all ready to go!  I purchased nearly 75 cubic feet of soil that we then placed in the beds after leveling them in the backyard.  We used topsoil, Miracle Gro Garening Soil, Peat moss and Compost for our beds.  Chris installed a fence as well to keep out our friendly squirrel and rabbit families.   All we need now is to have some decent warm weather to actually get some plants in the ground. 

Here is part of one of my grids for one of the beds I'm considering.  We will have an 8x4 grid for each beds....so 32 grids per bed. 

Square Foot Gardening....possible layout being considered.

I hope to utilize a great local organic grower, Bloomberg Gardens, to buy most of my plant starts...in addition to the great selection I already have from the Lincolnwood FFA Chapter.

In the end, I don't plan on using this to sustain our meals for the next year.  There will be no canning or freezing most likely....just learning and teaching our children the responsibility and fun, and sharing the food with our friends, family, and co-workers.  We will probably lose more to our friendly squirrels and rodents than we consume ourselves.  But guess what, we'll be outside with our kiddos, learning and having fun....in our real house's yard!  I'm sure by July I'll be regretting the daily watering and over-production of tomatoes that only my son and I enjoy, but that's a challenge I'm willing to take on. 

So, bring on the warm weather mother nature, I'm ready to plant.  Stay tuned on this new 'research project' of ours!