Greetings/Intro from Laurie! :)

Thanks for the kind welcome everyone. It was great to meet Desi and Joel yesterday.

If you've been out since last night, you might have noticed I got the square foot garden boxes up and ready for planting. All of this great rain is doing exactly what it's supposed to do: puff up all the little moisture-loving components in the soil and make it nice and moist, for this week, we plant!

Lyn asked me to post info about Square Foot Gardening (SFG). This was something my mom tried when I was younger, and from what I remember, it worked well. Although my mom is no longer with us, when I mentioned to my dad I had a community garden spot this summer, he said, "First, go get that book your mother had about square foot gardening." So I did. :) It's fascinating reading - the things that Mel Bartholomew, the "inventor", proposes are both common sense and innovative. We'll see how it goes. I love it in principle, particularly for the promise it holds as a garden practice for those less fortunate - once set up, it becomes pretty much self-sufficient, only needing the periodic addition of more compost now and then, which, of course, you can make at home from what you have grown in your garden. In his book, Mel discusses how this vision has gone to places like India, where the poorest now have gardens to help sustain them. A beautiful mission, I think.

I put together a photo journal of how I assembled everything. I'll add photos as the summer goes on, hopefully showing an amazing harvest, God willing.

Here is the link to the photo journal: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lauriegray/sets/72157618290136624/

Here is also a link to Mel's SFG website: http://www.squarefootgardening.com/

Finally, I plan to bring some mulch in from my backyard, where I have 3 truck fulls waiting to be distributed around the yard. I will use it to cover the weed mat in my garden area, but I can bring as much as I can so we can cover the aisles and any that anyone else may want, as well. Please let me know if you think you'd be interested in this so I know how much to try to bring.

Happy gardening, everyone!

Thanks, CUMC, for letting me play in your dirt!
Laurie