New from Canada

Hello
I stumbled upon this site while looking for gardening ideas. I'm not new to gardening, my gardening adventure began before there was internet, with an old beat up 'Rodales Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening' that I picked up a used bookshop. I had beautiful organic vegetable gardens for about 15 years. Watching the development over the years was a joy. The first year, the weeds and bugs were distressing, and I found myself running out of the house whipping a wet t-towel and chasing cabbage butterflies out of the yard. ( I feared our home had become sanctuary for all the bugs in the neighborhood since we used no pesticides. But, then the spiders arrived, with their big beautiful webs, and then birds, and one year we even had moles, then after a few years of trial & error, companion planting & natural remedies, composting & crop rotation, our gardens were lush and clean almost pest free, and amazingly productive. We were poor (single mom and all that) but counted our riches in the mounds of organic produce we grew and preserved in our little inner city back yard. (when people ask my kids how they got so beautiful they say "must be all that tomato stew I ate when I was growing up") I missed it when I had to move seven years ago. I had small plots in various community gardens in various cities, but alas, in spite of my longing, I wasn't able to recreate the experience.

Fast forward seven years, and I have been fortunate enough to mortgage a little old house that has been neglected for many years. Now that spring is starting to arrive here (we still have some snow melting and the temperature is below freezing at night) I am thinking about how to rehabilitate the yard. The ground is uneven, hard and full of burdock. I have pulled and chopped down most of the burdock, but I expect it will come back when the ground thaws. Basically it's like starting at square one. I want to put in a three sisters garden, a potato patch, carrots and peas, some sunflowers, a raspberry patch and of course, tomatoes and greens.
Long winded introduction, to be sure, but I am very pleased to find this forum.

Hello Smac , welcome to the site .

Your in for a paradigm shift in your gardening . not much is the same as old time mother earth gardening I can tell you . have you by any chance had a read of the little paragraph to the right of the title lines on the home page ( click the link )
I too was into mother earth gardenig for donkey's years but life circimstances has forced me to wise up to an easier lighter method of gardening.

you'll most likely have been making compost for your own gardens
check out the composting threads both on the left of the home page and in the main index on the home page you may discover interesting differences to what you've been used to doing.


It took me a few weeks to get the ethos of the site under my belt and I still occasionally do some old ways thinking and working ( much to my detriment )


In my strap lines are details of the book that we use to guide us in our " All New Square Foot Gardening " ( ANSFG) . It is all you need to know to be successful in our way which is also a runaway success in many parts of the world . If you don't have a copy , may I be cheeky and suggest that one will be of great benefit to you , so that you can sing off the same song sheet as the rest of us.