Contact:
Revvell@Revvellations.com
Here are some photos from my original part of the garden:
Phase #1 ~ planted March 7, '09
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Different View
Almost done. Went shopping today and got more lettuce, strawberries, corn and watermelon!
Almost done.. adding more soon!
Now, views of phase 2 ~
Pulling Bermuda Grass
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Squash, cukes, stevia, cantaloup waiting for their new home.
So, a month has gone by and much of the garden is doing fine. Some of the lobelia, one of the garlic, one of the peas and the stinging nettle have gone the way of the white clouds. I did have my first garden salad the other day.
So, here’s a couple of lopsided pics of the garden:
At 4 Weeks
Closer Look
Fresh Lettuce
We’ve also got tomatoes from last year.
Last Year's Tomatoes
A Closer Look
My first salad strictly from the garden:
First Garden Salad
And, Sunflower Sprouts ready for harvesting:
Sunflower Sprouts
I’ve planted the raspberry and blueberry bushes and my latest edition is a cherry tree. So excited!
I’m enjoying living out in the yard more now. Seems as though we’ve really put down roots here, literally and figuratively.
Injoy,
Revvell
I have to say I’m disappointed as last week I decided it was time to really get my garden going.
I wanted to take step-by-step photos of it all and either I couldn’t find my camera or, the pictures I took have been deleted. I’ve got a few here and will take more of the finished product as it now stands. I’m feeling quite proud of it. Wish you could have seen it when I started compared to how it is now.
I began a garden last year after we moved here. Part of the reason being that I want to know what’s going in my mouth and, keep the prices where I like them, therefore, a garden with my favorite veggies. I also belong to a local yahoo group where we share produce, seeds and words of encouragement and experience.
The left side next to my neighbor’s garage was bricked over, about 3 1/2 feet wide. I figured I’d just pull out a few rows of bricks and stack them next to the chain link fence and if we don’t buy the house and the owners want the bricks put back, it’ll be easy to do.
So, last year I planted tomatoes, cabbage, celery, basil, bell peppers and zucchini. The tomatoes did well as did the basil. Some of the peppers did well. The zukes came along later after having little short guys for a few weeks. The cabbage and celery didn’t survive.
This year, I figured I’d really get sincere and create a raised-bed garden because our soil is very sandy and loaded with rocks. How to do that? Wood sides was the first thing I considered. For some reason my husband wasn’t very enthused. Then I watched a vid by Garden Girl. I think it was where she (or whoever it was) had made a raised bed using cinder/cement blocks. Hmmm. Well, I’d have to remove all the bricks that were stacked on the sides PLUS the bricks that were still laid on the ground (figure now, about 175 of them) and replace them with the cinder blocks.
We went out to Lakeview Terrace and picked up two containers of mulch; then over to Arrow Gardens and got miscellaneous tools. One of my clients had recommended a particular place to get the cinder blocks. We went there and found them for $1.06 a piece which I thought was a good price but we didn’t purchase them then. I wanted to check at least one more place.
Online, I looked for “cinder block gardening” and someone said they’d found cinder blocks at Home Depot for under a dollar. Did an online search and found them for 97 cents. (They were previously at $1.15!) We got 20.
I pulled all the bricks and stacked them on our little hand cart. Bo tried to move them and broke the cart. O.k., well, just finished stacking and get them out of the way. I’ll figure out how to move them over to the side of the house later.
After removing the bricks, I brought the cinder blocks over from where he’d put them, one-by-one. Those dudes are HEAVY!
After getting about 2/3 of them moved, I filled a few with dirt and mulch. I needed to see SOME progress in planting! So cute! I then added some dirt/mulch between them and transplanted the garlic that was there as well as a pregnant onion (non-edible).
Stack of Bricks moved to the Side of the House
Finished Product
Better view of Finished Product
Bougainvillea after Chopping ~ They grow!
Two of our Furred/Feathered friends who keep us entertained
Here are some photos of the progress.
Produce
Getting Started
What I pulled and moved.. about 175 total of them.
THE bougainvillea before chopping
We had an overgrown bougainvillea bush between the two sections. A woman said she wanted it and I spent much of Saturday waiting for her to come and get it; she came over, looked at it, then said it was the wrong color. HUH? So, Bo cut it down to a more manageable size which made my neighbor happy since he’d had a garden in his yard until the bougainvillea blocked the sun to it.
What was really great about this experience is that, the first day my back was sore from pulling and moving brinks. At the end of the day, I took a hot bath with essential oils and slept REALLY soundly. The next morning, my back felt fine but I REALLY felt my thigh biceps. The second day was when I moved the bricks.
I took a recyclable bag, loaded with with 6 bricks and carried them to the side of the house; went back and did some more. My legs got a real good workout. Surprisingly, my arms didn’t feel too much of anything. It was all legs.
My awareness during this weekend is, how much better it is to get that kine of workout and feel like I’ve accomplished something than anything I’ve done in quite some time. No workout with kettlebells, Indian/Iron clubs, Bulgarian Training bags has made me feels so good. BUT, without having done those, I’d have been in pain and laid up in bed for a couple of days. As it was, each day I was ready to go again and git-r-done!
Here are some more photos of where it is currently ~ and then some….
More progress ~ lettuce, spinach, lobelia, marigolds, cilantro
Last year's tomatoes survived
Along the sidewalk in the front ~ lettuce, Italian Parsely, marigolds
… or does anyone else see how the raw food movement has become like so many others? Product! Products! Products!
I got to thinking yesterday how the Raw Spirit Festival is going more the way of other “health” conferences, festivals, expos and stuff. Just people selling expensive packaged products… purportedly raw.
Now, my question is, when something is put in a package, bottle or jar and stated that it is raw, is it? I know we can take foods, dehydrate the heck out of them, grind them up and they’ll last a long time yet, are they still raw? Can we believe the people who are packaging/bottling things that they can turn out large quantities of product, dehydrated under 118 degrees and still make money? (For what many are charging, it’s not inconceivable yet, I’m wondering where they’re getting the needed dehydrators/facilities to do this?)
The other question is, what happened to the life force that was in the food? Yes, when we do a lot of processing/dehyrdrating we do kill off much of the life force yet, I’m wondering if people who get used to bottled/packaged/jarred foods will ever get to the real thing? Those of us who’ve started raw doing our own processing/dehydrating tend to keep MORE of the life force and tend to, eventually do little or no processing/dehydrating?
Will people become junk-food raw fooders by continuing to purchase bottled/canned packaged products?
Will the raw movement divide more between the “purists” who say that food should be taken from the market/farm, etc. to the kitchen and processed at home or, grown by one’s own hand and shared/exchanged co-opted?
For me, all this packaged stuff is not whole food. The water has been removed which also means, much of the nutritional value. Is it still raw? My understanding is that it is (when dehydrated under 118 degrees) but, it’s not whole. In order for food to be whole it has to have it’s water remaining and rehydrating is not the same thing.
What do you think?
Anyway, just wanted to throw that out there as I was speaking with a woman today who was figuring out what she needs to do to feed her family of 4 by growing it all herself (as well as trading/bartering, etc.).
That’s my ultimate outcome with our yard. Grow it all; share what we can’t use; trade with others who have what we can’t/wont grow. Even living in an apartment you can create a garden.
Just remember, always, play with your food and, keep it real! 