Planning your garden in town

So you want to have a garden? Well, the best thing to do is first figure out where? If you live in Evansville, IN, chances are the soil has lead and mercury in it, so you may want to get the soil tested. If that isn't an option for money or time purposes, you have other options.

Container gardening:

Growing food in containers is easy and cheap. Anything will make a great container. Recycled 2 liter or plastic 1 gallon milk containers with the tops cut off work perfect. If you don't have them, look in your neighbors reclycing box. Please ask first. I'm sure they wouldn't mind. It's just trash to them.

Then make sure you order good seeds. http://rareseeds.com/ has heirloom seeds. Heirloom seeds have been saved over generations and are NOT genetically modified. They are fairly inexpensive as well. Start out with a few containers of things you like to eat. Tomatoes, squash, pepper and greens are all easy to grow in containers. Whatever you decide on, make sure you start small.

Today is a great day for getting those containers ready. It's time to begin! You can get organic potting soil at your local Rural King or at Lowe's. Or call one of the local gardening shops. They may have that as well.

This is the first step for container gardening.

Planting come this weekend. We palnt by the Moon. I will explain that at a later date.

Lasagna Gardening:

Lasagna gardening is a method using your yard, but making sure the soil is safe without testing or tilling. Tilling is bad for the soil in my humble opinion. It kills good bacteria, worms, and just make things harder. To begin a lasagna garden, you will need a 1-0 x 10 area in your yard. Start small if this is your first garden.

You will need:

Cardboard boxes- enough to cover the area you plot out (no waxy ones please), they repel water which is something your plants will need.
Newspaper - no shiny ones. They are not good ink and they also repel water sometimes.
Leaves, (preferably mulched and lot's of them.
Peat Moss
Compost or organic potting soil. You can use composted (3 - 5 year old cow or horse manure as well. ) Lot's of farmers will give it away. Just make sure it is old enough or will be burn your plants and kill them.

Here is Patricia Lanza's instructions. She wrote the book, so go with her instructions.

Now just have fun! That's what gardens are all about. Oh wait.... the food will be fabulous!