A little while ago I posted some pictures of a patch dug up in my yard, in hopes of making my own domestic garden. Well, my housemate got so excited she went out and bought some seeds yesterday! The way we look at it, we really have nothing to lose. If the plants don't amount to much (which is VERY likely) we can still test out the quality of our soil, and see if anything will actually grow. And hopefully by next season we can have a lovely, active garden!
I was pretty excited when I saw the soil, though. We threw some worm compost on top of it, and my housemate added some Epsom salt. This stuff is, honestly, poor man's fertilizer. When I first moved in, she told me she grew corn out of pretty terrible soil using this stuff (and water, of course). You can get cartons of it for pretty cheap from the grocery store (not sure how much... but it's used for other stuff, too). The soil looked very dark and rich... it was pretty exciting. As a soil nerd (I should have majored in soil science in college), I love this stuff.
We also have tubs of dead leaves raked from the yard, so I'm going to start throwing my kitchen scraps on top of them (I cook a bit, so there should be plenty to add!). I'm going to expand the garden as well, and maybe try planting some garlic... apparently you can grow it from the clove! I had no idea! Again, it probably won't work, but I just want to get dirty and put something in the soil. I'm also going to get serious about starting a worm bin this weekend. The addition of more worm castings could not possibly hurt the soil, and the stuff I can't use I'll stick in the freezer in ziplock bags. Everything helps, and it will be exciting to me just to watch the worms in action! And to have a place to throw my kitchen scraps. It will just encourage me to cook more (which is not a bad thing)!
Tonight I plan to make some spaghetti sauce from scratch using fresh oregano, tomatoes, tomato paste, salt, garlic, and other spices that I can get my hands on. I need to go to the store... I'd also like to bake something.
Today Cindy and I will be visiting a refugee garden on Latah street here in town. It's on the land of a synagogue and I actually live about 2 blocks away from it. It's right next to a park, and you can see the foothills in the background. A beautiful setting for a garden! I've walked by it many times but never actually visited, and I'm very excited to make a trip out there. I am slowly but surely putting together that community garden map, though I need to get some more pictures... many times I've either forgotten my camera or forgotten the memory card.