Follow Through Friday - Mary Grace's Garden

This girl is happy.

She has new gloves, and she's ready to make this garden a reality. My task for this week was worded last Friday like this:
Mary Grace begged last year for a raised garden. We talked about it a lot, but it never happened. She's begging again this year. This time next week, we'll have it planned and materials ordered or bought.

It is planned and materials are bought - for the most part.

Last year, I bought this book.  Let me say that you can't possibly NOT want to garden when you read Mr. Bartholomew. We may just win some gardening awards this summer. And last year, in addition to buying the book, we even went so far as to build the needed 4x4 frame, place it in the perfect spot in the yard and put weed barrier down inside it. That was the extent of it. Our David did comment that he enjoyed mowing and weed-eating around this empty frame all summer long. Once again, I have all kinds of answers for you who might be wondering why we I stopped there. But basically, all lame.

But this is a new year, and I have Follow Through Friday breathing down my neck. I actually spread the joy of this task over a couple of days this week. I started reading through the book again on Monday and took a few notes. On Wednesday, after Mary Grace's violin lesson, she, Lou and I began traversing Springfield for compost.

 With this square foot gardening method, you must fill your frame with Mel's Mix:
                                             1/3 Blended Compost
                                             1/3 Peat Moss
                                             1/3 Coarse Vermiculite
We had no problem purchasing the peat moss and vermiculite in Bolivar. (Shop Bolivar first!) But the compost was another story. Blended is the key word in this recipe. Mel asks you to put 5 different types of compost together for this garden. Bolivar had manure compost (no jokes, please) - but that was it. 

This compost crisis necessitated shopping Springfield.  We let our fingers do the walking first and found what we needed. Ace Hardware on Campbell had 2 different types: Cotton Burr and Mushroom.

And then, a visit to Springfield Seed (65 and Chestnut) completed our compost cache. There we purchased an organic compost (Scotchman's Choice, shown above) and my personal favorite: worm castings.

Or worm poop. Who would have ever dreamed a person could make money from that? Or spend money on that? This, the smallest bag we purchased all day, was the most expensive. I'm expecting great things.

We now have all we need for our box. What we are growing is still a bit up in the air. We will have 16 squares in which to plant our veggies. Mary Grace has some plants she for sure wants and I have a few that I for sure need. Here's what it will look like - except this one needs dirt.

 So, on the first warmish, non-windy day, Mary Grace, Lou and I will be positioning our frame and weed barrier in their appropriate spots, making our Mel's Mix, filling the frame, hammering the grid in place and then planting our seeds. We'll then step back and smile - and tell David he now has a filled 4x4 frame to mow and weed-eat around.

Next week: I saw a Hand-Lettered family tree on a blog that I liked. I want to make a rough draft of one, using my family names.