Garden planning time….
It’s February in Illinois and time to get serious about planning a small garden in our backyard. Our area for this garden is quite small but I believe that with enough planning we can make the most of our space. Our space is about 10′ X 18′ beside the shed in the backyard. It gets around 10 hours of sunlight during the peak summer months. I’m planning on using newsprint for the mulch to help keep the weeds down this year. I’m also hoping to utilize some ideas from the sites listed below such as companion planting to maximize my garden space. I will also be using Google Sketch Up to plan my garden with.
Now to the various help sites:
- Companion Planting – Secrets of Organic Gardening
- The Official Site of Square Foot Gardening and Mel Bartholomew, Originator and Author
- Backyard Gardener, Your Gardening Source with Garden Tips
- The Guerrilla Gardening Homepage
- Frugal Gardening – Simple ways to save money while you garden
- No Dig Gardens are the quickest easiest method to get growing!
- Sara\’s Superb Herbs
Once you have perused the above listed sites please take the time to vote in my poll as to which you found to be most helpful. If you have any other suggestion please feel free to leave a comment and I may incorporate your suggestions into my next post on this subject.
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Might surprise you Jack, but I do in fact have interest in gardining. It has been years since I was able to tinker in a garden, but I enjoy it none the less.
Newsprint may not be the best idea, it will hold water close to soil, and it will last a full season. But you will have to remove it from time to time and replace it. It does not degrade like many think it should, I have seen newspaper YEARS old come out of the ground and be just as readable as a paper just a few days old.
Newsprint will also hold molds and mildew and lots of bacteria, often things one would want to keep away from their garden. Frequent replacing will prevent that. Have you given thought to composting? What are your plans there?
Cant wait to read more !!!