Archive for April 10, 2011
Grow Your Own – The Thing In The Middle
Circular bed for vegetables and flowers.
by John Weckerle
Well, it wouldn’t be Spring here at New Mexico Central if we weren’t trying to come up with new and interesting ways to grow things that – we hope – will end up taking a trip through our digestive systems. This week, we began work on a new type of bed, this time one that we adapted from something we saw in Sunset Magazine. It’s a two-tiered, sort-of-circular bed that is intended not only to produce vegetables, but also to provide some ornamental value. In our version, we used 5.5-inch tall, wood-grained, plastic edging (the Sunset version used corrugated aluminum, which also looked good, but we saw the plastic first and thought it would look nice). There were other, somewhat less expensive edgings, but we liked this one because it was taller than most – also, it contains a good bit of recycled plastic.
Senior Gardening Correspondent Wilson and his crew waited until after lunch to get started. With the help of Assistant Editor Lucy, we did a “quick and dirty” (get it?) layout, and then your editor began digging. Using a turning fork, we loosened up the soil around the central feature to a diameter of about 9 feet and a depth of 8 inches to a foot, give or take a bit, breaking up dirt clods as we went along (we’ve got a bit of clay in the ol’ New Mexico Central soil). We then turned in two bales of peat moss and one bag each of steer manure and composted cotton burr, first turning in one bale of peat moss, and then doing another turn with the rest. Why the multiple turns? Well, for one thing, it helped further break up the clods. For another, this helped us achieve a nice, even mix of native and organic material.
A Discussion Elsewhere
by John Weckerle
Your editor has found himself in a discussion of free speech and other issues at Gadabout-Blogalot.com.