Dana's Garden

So that whole thing about waking up early and starting to till at sunrise?  Yeah, didn’t happen.

I should really know myself better by now.

Facebook can be a very powerful tool. With that in mind, I decided to take a stab at making a Facebook Fan Page just for this blog. Dana’s Garden on Facebook – you’ll also see the Fan box to the right of this page.

I intend to post not only blog update links, but also discussions and linked articles about gardening as an educational deal, as well as some surveys on what people think I should do in the garden (what to grow, what to use, techniques).  It should be a fun little page.  So fan it!  At the moment we have 7 fans (big shout-out to you guys).  I’m hoping to get 50 by the end of the month, but we’ll see.   At this point I’m just really grateful that someone’s reading this!

As far as other support I’ve gotten today, my pal Leslie, in regards to my situation with watering (see previous post) has offered up a large plastic trash barrel for me to keep on the plot and collect rain water with.  THANK YOU LESLIE

Contemplating going for an early morning tilling tomorrow before the rain comes in…looks like I still have a little time until it starts pouring.  If it rains tonight, will probably not go but if dry, I might consider it…if I can pull my lazy carcass out of bed.

Until then,

Dana

Was very eager to get to the garden tonight. I’m even more eager for Daylight Savings time to begin again. The sun is setting around 6:15 in the evenings, so that doesn’t give me a lot of time to get over to the garden after work. Plus, I had to make a quick stop at Lowe’s for a few things I needed: cultivator, hoe, garden gloves, big trash bags.
After that stop and then maneuvering through 29 traffic (exclaiming “YESSS” when lights were green and “AWWWWW!” when lights would suddenly turn red), I got to the site with about 30 minutes left till sunset.
If you’ll recall from my last post, I had thought I had inherited some freebies from the last renter when I got my site – namely, the large plastic trash bins to serve as rain catchers and therefore my method of watering the garden. Well, what I kind of figured would happen in situations usually too-good-to-be-true, did: the person in the plot next to me (I’m assuming it’s the person who had it last year who just decided to go with 1-2 plots this year instead of 3) had moved them over to their plot, along with all the wooden stakes.
Now I suppose I can’t really be upset about something if I never really had it, but it was such a tease! So now what do I do about water? As I stood and looked around sheepishly, wondering why I ever even got myself involved with this whole thing, I saw many abandoned plastic water jugs sitting in the woods (OK, I think I can officially claim these if it looks like someone dumped them!). So I brought them over to the plot, lined them up by the fence and took the caps off. Now, I think I have something to collect all this rain that’s going to fall over the remainder of the week. Let’s just hope no one takes back their water jugs too! :/
It really does make me wonder what proper “community garden etiquette” IS – do you forfeit your things if you leave them there after giving your plot up? How does that all work? What about all the filthy, muddy tarps that were left behind on the ground? Do I give those back too? Heh. I ended up picking those up and bagging them, by the way. They’re still sitting alongside the fence so I suppose my neighbor can have those back too if they want them.
I also did a bit of raking just to get the old dead straw-like weeds up, so the debris pile has grown immensely. Lots of stuff to dump during my next trip out.
Still all the weeds to pull and rocks to get up as well. Other than that, the soil looks to be pretty good, just needs to be tilled and hoed a bit. There are some parts (like where the tarps were laying) that are pretty muddy, but I may not even end up using all the space – as I said before, 30′ x 30′ is pretty big, especially for a beginner that’s never grown on anything more than maybe 10′ x 5′.
There wasn’t time to do much else tonight. I was really working as quickly as possible as I would occasionally glance up to see the sun setting over the English Inn. At one point, I got a call from Kurt (my boyfriend) to chat. He had an interesting story about work, and, feeling guilty, I told him let’s wait to talk until I get home due to my epic Race Against the Sun. As I hung up, I got a little sick feeling in my gut that by the time I got my first seeds planted, he might hate me from all the time I’m spending on this whole project. The blogging especially is eating up a lot of time, since I’m new to this whole thing and still learning how to install the plug-ins, widgets, and things. Am I putting love on the line?
And, as I was bagging tarps, I thought I heard a voice calling out to me. No, seriously. I shook it off as a “Nahh” sort of moment and then looked up about 5 seconds later to see a nice neighborly gardener in a black Prius sitting in front of my plot looking at me. Instead of being a decent human being and doing something nice like waving or smiling or heck, even introducing myself, I just stand and stare. He slowly drives away. Why do I do these things? I guess because I’m afraid of, Oh, what if he really DIDN’T say anything to me? Do I look dumb if I speak to him? But I look even more like a dumbass by NOT saying anything…of course, not realizing this until the moment has come and gone. So….
I’m really sorry, Man in the black Prius! I will come and talk to you next time.
And why do I still get a sick feeling that I stole someone’s water jugs out of the woods…
Is anyone going to like me by the time I’m done with this?
Sigh.
I’ll have a lot to start thinking over and planning as the rain falls this week. Probably will get back to the plot sometime this weekend when it’s clear.

Later,
Dana

(Back-posted from Sunday, March 7, 2010)

I finally saw my garden plot for the first time yesterday.  The short of it:  I may have jumped into this without truly realizing how large the scope of this is.

First of all, 30’ x 30’ is much, much larger than I had imagined.  Now, since the plot is barren right now (trash and debris that needs to be cleaned up aside – more on that later), it could be that it just seems to be a lot bigger to me, but even so, I have a lot of space to work with.  Which is a good thing, long-term – possibilities for different plants, bed arrangements, etc. are many.

But right now, well…I have a lot of work to do.

My plot is part of about three plots that were merged together by a previous renter.  So, at first it was a little difficult for this beginner to determine where her plot began and ended, but luckily, a nice neighboring gardener was able to help me with that (thanks Pete!).

Looking around, I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t given thought to the fact that I’m going to have to clean up after the last renter.  And I also didn’t realize the structures, bed borders, trash cans, and other things that would be left behind.  Not that I’m trashing on the last renter or anything – quite the opposite.  It’s actually nice to have some big trash barrels left behind that I can collect rain water in and haul weeds away with.

Here’s where you get to know me a bit:  when I’m really excited about starting a new project, I can’t tear myself away from it.  Even though it was my intention to just show up and “look at” the garden, I found myself getting right to work – pulling up dead plants, moving wooden bed borders and stakes aside, pulling up carpet and paper pieces off the ground.  All this with no work gloves (forgot them at home) so the skin on my hands is not too happy with me at the moment.

I also made a quick list of the major things that need to get done (this is just a start):

• Clear all brush, weeds, paper, tarps
• Till/hoe and treat soil
• Decide what to grow (will be mainly, if not completely, vegetables)
• Plan and organize beds
• Plant seeds/plants
• Maintain

I took some quick shots of the space, which I’ve posted to Flickr (integrated into this blog).  I plan to keep posting pictures as the garden progresses, and hope you will keep up with my progress, too. 

Until next time,
Dana

(Back-posted from Saturday, March 6, 2010)

My name is Dana and I’m trying to start a garden.

I live in the beautiful city of Charlottesville, VA.   I haven’t been here too long – almost a year now – and I’ve only been living in Virginia for a year and a half, roughly.  I came here for a new job from North Carolina (which is also very beautiful, but definitely a different animal than C‘Ville), and so far I am loving it here.  I just never seem to run out of things to do in this place – opportunities seem to abound from every direction.

One of those opportunities – getting back to the purpose of this blog now – was to have my own community garden space.  For those who aren’t familiar with community gardens, they’re a great place to plant your flowers, vegetables, etc. if you don’t have your own yard in which to do so.

In Charlottesville, there are two gardens from which to rent a plot:  Meadowcreek Gardens, and Azalea Gardens.  I chose a plot at Meadowcreek (a little more convenient, being right off of 29N and 250E).  The plot is about 30’ x 30’ and costs $60/year for me to rent, since I live in the county.  (I’m actually moving to the city in a few months, so too bad I can’t have Parks & Rec prorate it to the city price of $40/year for me – doh!).  Still, $60 is not so bad spread out between March and November, over which the rental period stretches.

Because of Snowmaggedon 2009/2010 (a.k.a. our MASSIVE snowfall in Charlottesville), I didn’t actually get to see the plot before I committed to renting it, so admittedly, I went into this somewhat blindly.  At one point, I did make an attempt to see it, but it was definitely a failed one.   I drove my little Honda Civic onto the one-lane gravel road that leads up to the garden from the English Inn, with snow still on the ground.  BIG mistake.  I underestimated the height of the snow and ended up getting my car stuck in some muddy parts.  Being that it was after 5:30 pm, in February, and almost dark out, and I was alone, it was pretty terrifying!  I had to get out of the car, with no gloves on, and flats mind you, and dig my way out around my tires with my bare hands.  I’d get back in the car, move another inch, and repeat.  Luckily I got out before it was completely dark out, and I wasn’t going to try that again until the sun melted all the snow away!

So I suppose that’s where we come to the beginning of the project.  Now that we have some sun and the snow is gone, this weekend will mark my first time seeing the plot and understanding what I’m really in for.  I’ll talk about that in my next post, and hopefully keep some of you engaged in my progress!

Cheers,
Dana