Texas — The Final Frontier

This is the first of a series of articles on growin’ your own stuff. Check back frequently for the next installments.

You live in a cozy house surrounded by lawn and a few trees. That’s nice. You are the typical Texan homeowner. You water and fertilize the lawn so you can mow it every week during the summer. Over and over again you follow the same routine. By the end of summer, you are thoroughly sick of it. Then, as cool fronts boldly begin to intrude, you have to deal with all those leaves. It is then you begin to wonder, “Who invented this ‘lawn-thing’ anyway?” When one realizes that all it does is make work and require expensive water and fertilizer, one begins to wonder about the sanity of it all. My question to you is, “Why don’t you kill a large portion of that lawn and redirect your water, fuel and energy, toward growing something you can eat?” When you bought the place, gardening may not have entered your mind. Now you think you might like to grow some stuff. So where will you put the garden? Good question. Let me try to help you.

Space is what you need. Space…the final frontier. You must boldly go forth and find a spot where the sunlight reaches the ground for at least six hours a day in the summer. A few vegetables, such as some peppers, grow well in dappled shade. But, for the most part, if you don’t have a sunlit spot you’re out of luck. The next option is to find a space somewhere else, perhaps a vacant lot or a space along the alley, behind the fence, etc. You must also have easy access to water, but later on we’re going to discuss ways to use very little of that precious and pricey resource. Now that you have found a place to garden, there are several preparatory steps.

• You will need some hand-tools: shovel, digging fork, rake, wheelbarrow or garden cart, trowel and hand fork. It is important to have a place where these can be covered or stored away from the elements when not in use.
• Make provision to get water to the vicinity of your garden (hoses or pipes). You will eventually need to think about drip irrigation – the most efficient way to water in our semi-arid climate.
• Begin stockpiling mulch. You will never have enough! Save newspapers, leaves, clippings, trimmings, and put them in a place where you have enough room to work with them. In Abilene and many other cities in the region, you can fetch loads of mulch from the local recycling center.
• You will need to plan space next to your stockpile for some tools such as a grinder/shredder and, hopefully a cement-mixer in which you will seldom mix cement (these are not absolutely necessary but make life easier).
• Begin a compost pile or bin if you have not done so already. All vegetable scraps from the kitchen, plus tea leaves, coffee grounds, etc. make excellent compost. You can also begin a worm bin which we will discuss later.
• Buy enough compost to cover your garden beds two inches deep and have it on hand. If you have a pickup or trailer, buy bulk compost. It is substantially cheaper than the bagged variety.

Next time: “Finding and Preparing your Space”…in the meantime, eat your veggies!  Nonnie and Pop said so.

It’s in the Blood, Y’all

Recently, my last-born son decided he wanted to put in a veggie garden in Denton where he’s in graduate school at UNT. The house he’s renting has a likely space. He called me to find out what to do first to get ready for spring.

It’s good and gratifying to see that he’s concerned about growing good, organic vegetables and is thinking ahead. So, he obviously didn’t inherit my apathy gene, but I don’t really care. He also didn’t inherit my procrastination gene, but I’ll think about that later.

I told him, of course, to start a compost pile. He asked me what to put in it and I said, “Everything that will rot.” That covers a lot of territory but it is the correct answer. Leaves? Yes. Leavings from cooking and eating? Certainly. Even bones? Absolutely. Worn out cotton clothing, hair (animal and human) vacuum cleaner bags, paper plates, newspaper, coffee grounds, eggshells, spoiled milk, weeds, grass clippings, and, if you’re not squeamish, urine to fuel the process (it will be undetectable by the time you use the compost). Anything in your fridge that has gone off can go in. If it rots let it rot in your compost. Here’s a pretty good site.

I also told him to dig out the Bermuda grass. Oh yeah. The truth is, you can’t get it all and whatever you miss will come up and begin colonizing your garden as soon as the weather gets warm. You have to keep yanking it out or send it to its reward via some brand of glysophate…depending on just how organic you want to be.

I told him he could try peas, broccoli, lettuce, etc in early spring. I will start some broccoli for him along with tomatoes, peppers and eggplant for him to set out come Spring.

So, he is getting ready to join us in the great adventure of growing one’s own food. I knew he had it in him. It’s in the blood.