Old garden beds
These are going away here in the next couple days. We’re replacing them with Vego Steel garden beds. I built these in 2012. See photos of the building project below.

These are going away here in the next couple days. We’re replacing them with Vego Steel garden beds. I built these in 2012. See photos of the building project below.
Some of our spring flowers are up. Aren’t we lucky we have this gnome to do all the hard work for us?
In the process of signing up for a local food co-op, we’ve been reading several local blogs about local food and green living.
Local Food Blog for Indianapolis – http://www.goinglocal-info.com/
Local Food Blog (not based in Indy) – http://www.eatlocalchallenge.com/
A Guide to Local Foods in Indianapolis – http://www.goinglocal-info.com/my_weblog/indiana_food_guide.html
Finding Local Food Markets in Indiana
http://www.indianafarmdirect.com/index2.php
http://www.goinglocal-info.com/my_weblog/community-sponsored-agriculture.html
http://urbanindy.blogspot.com/
http://www.green-lemonade.com/
Local Green Email List – http://www.greenpieceindy.com
Local Green Magazine – http://www.indianalivinggreen.com/
We ended up signing up for Farm Fresh Delivery, which our friend Jen signed up for a while back. They’re a local farm that delivers a bin of their produce on a weekly or every-other-week basis, and you can add some other groceries like fresh baked bread, eggs, milk or yogurt from local farms if you want. I’m happy about this because I’m wanting to change my regular eating habits to focus more on fruits and and lean meats, with fewer processed foods and fewer starches and refined sugars. It’s also nice because we’re supporting local growers and our food won’t be traveling as far and burning lots of gas to reach us.
I picked up Michael Pollan’s “In Defense of Food” the other day (with a gift card! I’m not violating my New Year’s resolution) and it outlines what many books I’ve read about eating cover – leaner meats, fish, more vegetables, whole grains, less processed foods and less sugar. That fits nicely with The Okinawa Diet and You: The Owner’s Manual, which I’ve read previously.
You’ll have to pardon me – this is on of those posts that’s just making notes for myself to refer back to later. Last night I planted in the front flowerbeds:
1 purple lavender
1 orange symphony
1 summertime pink charma
2 Dianthus – Confetti Deep Red
2 Dianthus – Spangled Star
A seed packet of Butterfly Flowers
2 Broadway Lights Daisies
3 Shasta Daisies
2 Coreopsis – Rising Sun
2 Pensteman – X Mexicali
1 Delphinium – Summer Blue
1 Delphinium – Blue Mirror
4 Delosperma – Cooperi Yellow
Over the weekend we planted – Lettuce, cucumbers, radishes, sugar snap peas, rhubarb and green onions.
Still to plant – seed packets of Columbines and more Blue Mirror Delphiniums.
Things I still plant to buy and plant – hostas and Pachysandras in the back at the corner of the house near the deck, to fill in so we don’t have to mow in the awkward corner, and Clematis next to the deck to climb up the trellis. Also, I need to plant the copper pipe trellis from the garage, and start some Clematis growing on it at the side of the house. And I need to finish weeding the side bed, and get some small fencing for around the vegetables, so the bunnies don’t eat them when they start to grow.
The 200 bulbs we planted last fall are coming up nicely in front of our house, and last night I planted 2 daisy plants and a lavender plant in the front. I also bought seeds for Columbines, Butterfly plants, and Delphiniums, and the other day Stephanie and I planted seeds in a starter kit for Texas Blue Bonnets and Aster.
I need to get some topsoil to prepare beds for our vegetables; we’re planting lettuce, cucumbers, sugar snap peas, green onions, rhubarb, radishes, oregano, parsley and basil. I hope. We need to get started soon. This is the first year I’ve planted vegetables, so I’m not entirely sure what I’m doing.
Revised list of stuff I’d like to accomplish this weekend, if I have time…
Our flower beds have very depleted soil, so I picked up a load of compost this morning and spread it around the beds after overturning all the soil. It’s amazing how much compost this requires, really. I’ll need to get another load of crap for the front beds; a truckload only covered the beds on the south side of the house. Technically, it’s not just crap – it’s a mixture of compost, peat and topsoil. But it smells like crap and attracts LOTS of flies, so basically it’s crap.
You can see a bunch more pictures of the work I did here.
I got it from Indiana Mulch Company, because I priced it in comparison to the bags at Lowes and this is a way better deal. They also are handy because they’re right downtown (we pass them on the way to the recycling place) so I don’t have to drive all over to get it.
I in no way resembled this character while shoveling shit.