Hello from the Valley of the Sun!

Hello!

I am so excited to be here!  I have been reading Mel's second book and various threads; the information is great!

I have tried a raised bed made with boulders as borders years ago and it went bad quickly.  My mother, who grew tomatoes and eggplants in NJ, helped me.  I think we amended the native clay with too much steer manure!

Earlier this year I installed a 3X5X16 raised bed filled with native soil and fine compost from Singh Farms (came highly recommended) but then life took over and I never did get anything planted for spring or summer.

I home-school my girls and we read the Little House books as read-a-louds.  I love the idea of teaching them that food doesn't come from the grocery store!  And we don't have to pay $1.50 for an organic, better tasting cucumber!

I have a good sized yard and my house faces east.  So with my west-end, larger raised bed I plan to work into that soil MM.  It should be a good summer garden as well as minimal shade for the fall and winter.   

The back yard on the north side gives me good winter sun from 8:30AM to 3PM so that is where I placed 3 new 2X2 SFG boxes.  I was told by another SFGer that the Garden Time MM is not the best for our area but I didn't want to deviate much from Mel's advice.  I mixed compost, organic garden soil and (mostly) packaged Mel's Mix.  It looks wonderful!! 

I have broccoli transplants and will sow spinach and kale soon.  When I amend the larger bed I will put some carrots and probably some root veggies.

This is so exciting!  I look forward to getting to know you and learning from and with you.  I look forward to teaching my girls that food grows!!  I look forward to tasty, homegrown, healthy eating!!

Oh,you have helpers!  How fun!!  Can't wait to see pix!!!