Considering a Temporary Sunshine Snatch

[primsong]

Our next-door neighbor rather suddenly passed away a little bit ago and the house now stands empty... it's a half-acre, not a starter home, so who knows how long until it even ends up on the market much less sells to anyone? I'm eyeballing the garden area, which she never used but I always coveted -

She just occasionally had a yard-guy come by to blow-and-rake around the old raised beds. I get so little sunshine that I can barely grow peas and cherry-tomatoes, but over there... well, it isn't Sunshine City, but it's better than I have.

Read a blog entry where a fellow said an easy way to use a neglected raised bed was to simply plop the entire bag of planting mix down on it, cut away the top of the plastic, poke holes in the bottom and stick your seedlings right into it. Think I'll give this a try with something easy like summer squash and green beans.

This way even if the house fills up before harvest time, I can share - it makes it look less neglected and empty and I get at least one year where I can maybe grow some veggies that actually...you know... grow. :-) Fruit I have in spades, but veggies are another matter.


Maybe it will be a zucchini-bread year. Are any of you making plans for springtime planting yet? Anything new going to be tried?

Comments

[stellastars]

Currently my family is having a huge debate just about the location of a garden. Our old spot needs to rest a bit... I'm personally supporting the idea of planting random patches of veggies amongst the landscaping, but that's mostly cause I don't feel like having to be the one to clear a whole other area for the garden!

It's a great idea about planting right with an entire bag of mix... I might have to keep this in mind -- thanks for sharing that tip!


Also, sorry to hear about your neighbor! :-(

[primsong.livejournal.com]

Amen on the not wanting to clear new area, such backbreaking work - I saw a garden magazine recently that was advocating people with those little postage-stamp backyards plant vegetables and such in planters and among their shrubbery to make it more productive, why not? It might even be pretty. :-) And yeah, I like that bag idea, definitely going to give it a try, I'm plotting now how many bags I want to haul in.