Getting Started

I thought about blogging our progress AFTER we started the project so, I figured I would get you caught up on what we have done to prepare for our backyard project.

We are actually trying to start most of our produce from seed. We built a table with all the wood scraps we had left over and from a door that was scrapped at an old job for the seedling green houses. The house came with a nice dual bulb fluorescent fixture in the basement, of course it needed new bulbs. We purchased one cool white and one warm white bulb to make the seedlings happy. We tried our hand at growing seedlings last year; it did not go so well. Reading about what you should do actually helps. This year we're ready for a successful beginning and started more than 100 seeds last Wednesday. The tomatoes (better boy, super sweet cherry 100, and yellow pear), basil (genovese), dill (bouquet), and marigolds (disco mix and sugar & spice) have already sprouted! Others we've started include eggplant (black beauty), peppers (sweet yolo wonder), and cilantro. More to be planted this weekend. We directly sowed seeds into the salad table Sunday: arugula, lettuce mix, and spinach.




As you know we are building raised beds for all our veggies. We purchased 18 untreated 2" x 10" x 8' boards which are now the frames for our 6 beds which are 3' x 8' x 10". It was hard to find straight boards for the job, we picked through them with more boards behind us than the ones we actually picked, we did put the rejects back on the rack. We also built a salad table for our leafy greens (www.hgic.umd.edu/_media/documents/hg601.pdf ) using untreated 2" x 4" which were also picked through carefully. This may not have been the greenest way to build the beds and table, but it was very hard to find second hand boards that were straight enough. The compost bin? Well it's a compost bin. Not much to say about it, there's really no mystery to what's inside. I wish it would heat up again as things are decomposing way to slowly for my liking.

My B'More Backyard Project

Here it goes my first ever Blog Post. I never really had anything to Blog about until I started the garden project in my backyard. Oh what a project it has been!

I moved to my nice Newsed house in the suburban town of Lauraville, Baltimore City, in August 2007 with my wife and we have decided that the backyard is going to be our source of fresh produce and a sanctuary outside of the house. Currently we are building the raised beds that will hold most of our staple produce, such as, Tomatoes, Cucumbers, Squash, Misc Herbs, and it seems the list keeps growing. Thank goodness you only have to build the beds once. We have also built a Salad table for all the leafy greens that we will consume and most likely share with the neighbors.

Last year while cutting the grass I noticed a peculiar vine growing along the back fence. I asked my father-in-law to try to identify the vine, the only thing we could come up with was that it was some type of Grape, since the fence was a low lying metal fence and the type I have seen typically used for growing grapes. Well as the summer season progressed I noticed they were growing up all the weed trees I had in the back and they had little cone shaped flowers growing from them. I picked one and tried to identify it online, while, drinking a beer that had the same little nugget on it's label! Hops! I became very excited about the find and pretty much told all my friends and co-workers, I have always been interested in home brewing and have friends that have been doing it for years. I contacted this friend and asked him how he would feel about brewing a batch of Beer with the hops found in my yard. He said cool, he had never made a Fresh Hop brew. He came over and we had a good time just picking the hops off the vines and laying them on the front door screen to dry for a day, the next day it was on and he and I brewed some of the best tasting Harvest ale I have ever had, mostly he. Thanks B!

So now the madness has begun and my Wife has really been a good sport with the all the talks of hops in the backyard, and now it is full on backyard gardening.

If you are interested in learning more about Lauraville and a few of the local businesses locally where Gretchen and I live in please feel free to check out the links I have posted to the right!

Please stop by frequently I will be posting more links and more pictures of the progress.