I Really Want a Garden

I don't know what has gotten into me, but I want to start a little fruit and vegetable garden so bad. Coming from me this would probably be surprising to my immediate family. I have always hated going with on trips to garden store, watering plants, or having to do anything with the planting process. I was never the one that bought or wanted the plants in the first place so I couldn't understand why my mom insisted on making me water them, and my snarky teenage/scientist argument was that if the plants were meant to survive they would and if they didn't, well hey, survival of the fittest. There was also the time my lovely parents decided they wanted some front yard landscaping, and so we spent all day hacking up the grass and smoothing out dirt, and hating every second of it (I'm convinced my parents hated it too), but we went to see Pirates of The Caribbean afterwards so....



Growing up we had rhubarb plants, a strawberry patch, raspberries, a grape vine, and I think at one point we might have had an actual little garden but I'm not one hundred percent certain about that. I loved eating and picking the fruit, but never had to do anything to  maintain those plants besides some occasional weeding of the strawberry patch. Funny story, one summer I kept seeing that some of the strawberry plants were looking chewed on and thinking it was a rabbit looked up ways to keep rabbits out. I had read that taking hair from hairbrushes and laying it around the edge was a good deterrent (i'm not sure if this was really true or not). Anyways I was outside one day and I look over and our dog, Lucky, had her whole body in the raised strawberry bed and was chomping down on not just the strawberries themselves but the whole plant!


When i was living in Rochester I would go to the Public Market every week and get all of my groceries, especially produce, dirt cheap. Seriously if you live near the Rochester area, you're doing yourself a disservice by not going to the market (Wegman's aside). Now that I have to buy my groceries at the store every week I love the idea of growing my own fresh produce, not only as a way to lessen my grocery bill, but also as a way to eat healthier and cleaner.

I'd been reading up a lot on raised garden beds, and was thinking about doing that, but C and I are moving in August and it would be such a hassle to take apart and rebuild the bed, not to mention loosing the original dirt and needing to buy new dirt that I was starting to think about just putting the garden plans off until next year.



But then I found the blog one hundred dollars a month and her use of non-chemically treated wood pallets as a way to do a pallet garden!!!!

 

Here are the reasons I'm so excited about this. 1) You can buy new pallets for cheap $9 2) They don't take up that much room, and seeing as how I currently have a communal back yard they'll be the perfect space for the segment of yard I consider mine. 3) You don't have to till the soil or any of that nonsense 4) Your planting space is layed out for you and 5) I can move these without transplanting the plants and minimal soil loss when we move.

I was going to get started this weekend, but it's supposed to snow tomorrow and I was worried all of the plants I would buy would die, so this is in store for next weekend. I've decided to have 2 pallets, and start small. I'm going to get salad greens, strawberries, fresh herbs that I use a lot of, maybe a tomato plant. I'm still trying to figure out if bell peppers, cucumbers, and zucchini would have enough room in the pallets to grow.

I'll post pictures after I get this all setup next weekend, but in the meantime tell  me what you would grow, or what you think could grow well in this setup!

I don't know what has gotten into me, but I want to start a little fruit and vegetable garden so bad. Coming from me this would probably be surprising to my immediate family. I have always hated going with on trips to garden store, watering plants, or having to do anything with the planting process. I was never the one that bought or wanted the plants in the first place so I couldn't understand why my mom insisted on making me water them, and my snarky teenage/scientist argument was that if the plants were meant to survive they would and if they didn't, well hey, survival of the fittest. There was also the time my lovely parents decided they wanted some front yard landscaping, and so we spent all day hacking up the grass and smoothing out dirt, and hating every second of it (I'm convinced my parents hated it too), but we went to see Pirates of The Caribbean afterwards so....



Growing up we had rhubarb plants, a strawberry patch, raspberries, a grape vine, and I think at one point we might have had an actual little garden but I'm not one hundred percent certain about that. I loved eating and picking the fruit, but never had to do anything to  maintain those plants besides some occasional weeding of the strawberry patch. Funny story, one summer I kept seeing that some of the strawberry plants were looking chewed on and thinking it was a rabbit looked up ways to keep rabbits out. I had read that taking hair from hairbrushes and laying it around the edge was a good deterrent (i'm not sure if this was really true or not). Anyways I was outside one day and I look over and our dog, Lucky, had her whole body in the raised strawberry bed and was chomping down on not just the strawberries themselves but the whole plant!


When i was living in Rochester I would go to the Public Market every week and get all of my groceries, especially produce, dirt cheap. Seriously if you live near the Rochester area, you're doing yourself a disservice by not going to the market (Wegman's aside). Now that I have to buy my groceries at the store every week I love the idea of growing my own fresh produce, not only as a way to lessen my grocery bill, but also as a way to eat healthier and cleaner.

I'd been reading up a lot on raised garden beds, and was thinking about doing that, but C and I are moving in August and it would be such a hassle to take apart and rebuild the bed, not to mention loosing the original dirt and needing to buy new dirt that I was starting to think about just putting the garden plans off until next year.



But then I found the blog one hundred dollars a month and her use of non-chemically treated wood pallets as a way to do a pallet garden!!!!

 

Here are the reasons I'm so excited about this. 1) You can buy new pallets for cheap $9 2) They don't take up that much room, and seeing as how I currently have a communal back yard they'll be the perfect space for the segment of yard I consider mine. 3) You don't have to till the soil or any of that nonsense 4) Your planting space is layed out for you and 5) I can move these without transplanting the plants and minimal soil loss when we move.

I was going to get started this weekend, but it's supposed to snow tomorrow and I was worried all of the plants I would buy would die, so this is in store for next weekend. I've decided to have 2 pallets, and start small. I'm going to get salad greens, strawberries, fresh herbs that I use a lot of, maybe a tomato plant. I'm still trying to figure out if bell peppers, cucumbers, and zucchini would have enough room in the pallets to grow.

I'll post pictures after I get this all setup next weekend, but in the meantime tell  me what you would grow, or what you think could grow well in this setup!