eat more kale!

I could not be more excited about the arrival of Spring. Even though we didn't have nearly as brutal a winter as last year, there's still an exquisite pleasure in witnessing the renewal this season brings.

Continued experiments
This year's garden experiment continues some of last year's endeavors, like start seedlings in the basement, in all manner of recycled containers. (I didn't get a chance to snap any pics, but just imagine a small army of greek yogurt containers sprouting tomato and pepper seedlings.)

 
Last year's raised beds did well and will be put to good use again this year.

I'm always on the lookout for free supplies, and am a frequent visitor to the City of Falls Church's free leaf mulch pile. There are also a ton of great places to get free (or nearly-free) seeds, including events like Rooting DC and Washington Gardener Magazine's annual seed swap, or organizations Wintersown.org and the America the Beautiful Fund.

The lawn takeover continues, little by little. I forgot to take a "before" picture, but handily enough, Google Maps hasn't refreshed its image of my yard since about 2009, so here's a snapshot from a much greener time of year:

here's the street view from January:

and here's a view from the house in March:

Besides the additional raised beds, the bushes near the mailbox and around the center island have been removed to make way for herbs and veggies, and there are two new "lasagna" beds in the main part of the front yard.

New experiments


I planted some garlic in November, and it seems to be coming along nicely. It should be ready to harvest in June, about time for the tomatoes to take over this bed.

I really wanted to plant potatoes, so I splurged on some potato bags. Blue and purple taters went in this past weekend.

I thought I'd try wintersowing this year. The concept is putting seeds out over the winter in little mini-greenhouses. Supposedly they sprout once the weather gets nice enough, and are hardier than plants started inside. So far some items have sprouted, some not yet; will see how the seedlings do in comparison with their pampered inside brethren.

I put in some raspberry & blueberry bushes, right out front! I'm simultaneously excited and terrified by this prospect. I fully expect a scene from Hitchcock's "The Birds" to play out in my front yard, but if there are any berries left for the humans, it should be pretty cool.

I'll do a separate post on my lasagna bed project. No, I'm not growing lasagna in the garden; the term refers to a no-till method of layering materials to create garden beds.

Along with the lawn takeover comes a renewed interest in edible landscaping. This includes putting out attractive veggies like nagoya kale  (pictured at the top of this post) front and center alongside traditional flowers, or mixing blueberries with alyssum.

I'm going to try to post some pics each month, so you can see how the garden is progressing. Here's a snapshot of what's growing now:

leeks, started indoors in January	returning chives	tarragon	thyme and oregano
cilantro	overwintered kale	mystery items

RELATED LINKS:
* browse all garden posts
* view all garden pics
* City of Falls Church free leaf mulch
* Wintersowing resources
Wintersown.org | A Garden for the House | Dirty SC8 
* lasagna gardening
* edible landscaping/lawn replacement
Rosalind Creasy | Edible Front Yards | Lawn Reform Coaltion 
* Rooting DC
* Washington Gardener Magazine
* America the Beautiful Fund

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