Newbie From Yucaipa, Ca

seamammal 3/20/2014, 3:45 pm

Hi All,

I have been wanting to start gardening for years. I read the Original SFG book several years ago, but because of my line of work, I never seemed to have time to garden. I am retiring July 4 so I will have plenty of time. I am getting my my beds and trellis set up next week. With the drought we are having the price of produce is going to skyrocket.

I am looking forward to this new adventure and knowing that what I eat is organic. I have been reading, watching videos and anything else I could find. As I see it, my two biggest challenges are going to be making compost and organic pest control. Lowes is carrying Mels mix so I can at least get started.

I expect to be here often over the next few months mining all of the great info and blasting out tons of questions.

Talk to you soon

Mark

Goosegirl 3/20/2014, 6:52 pm

Seamammal Mark! Since you know about Mel's Mix, can we assume that you have one of the editions of ALL NEW Square Foot Gardening? If you have only heard about MM from the site, GET THE BOOK! If you already have it YOU ARE ON YOUR WAY!!! Some forum members have found the bagged Mel's Mix to be a little light on nutrients, so don't be afraid to throw in a bag or 2 of straight compost. Mel himself recommends planting in straight compost for those in areas of the world where the peat and vermiculite may be hard to come by or just too expensive. Extra compost won't hurt, but if you are light on nutrients, you will be fighting it all season long.

GG

**AtlantaMarie** 3/20/2014, 7:09 pm

Hi Seamammal! Welcome to the party.

I just joined the other day and have gotten SO MUCH great info already.

You'll have a lot of fun on here!

Eric Lingo 3/20/2014, 7:16 pm

welcome to the party seamammal. I live in orange county CA so not horrendisly to far from ya. I am starting my adventure into SFG aswell hope to see your work up on the forums good luck and nice to see more CAs here

seamammal 3/20/2014, 8:10 pm

Thanks all,

GG, I do have the book, finishing up now. Thanks for the tip about the compost augmentation.

Marie, why does Buford GA ring a bell? was a movie or book about the area?

Eric. I'm down that way all the time. There's a place off of redhill I visit.

Well everyone have a good night. Time for the hour long commute.

Eric Lingo 3/20/2014, 9:18 pm

awesome...I live in santa ana so ya down the street from redhill like 5 miles

**sanderson** 3/20/2014, 11:37 pm

Mark, Welcome to the Forum from Fresno, CA. $glad you\'re here$ I joined a year ago, and I have to say that you can learn so much from the good folks on this Forum.

**AtlantaMarie** 3/21/2014, 8:38 am

Not sure why you'd know about Buford, Seamammal. We DO have the largest mall in the southeast, but... We're also near Lake Lanier/LL Islands Resort.

??

We're pretty nice folks! Maybe that's it! rock on

Windmere 3/22/2014, 10:04 am

Welcome aboard seamammal. This will begin my second year with SFG and being able to access this forum has been a joy. Folks are very helpful here. I know you will have a blast being able to focus more time on gardening. Enjoy it!

$glad you\'re here$

Windmere 3/22/2014, 10:14 am

Goosegirl wrote: Seamammal Mark! Since you know about Mel's Mix, can we assume that you have one of the editions of ALL NEW Square Foot Gardening? If you have only heard about MM from the site, GET THE BOOK! If you already have it YOU ARE ON YOUR WAY!!! Some forum members have found the bagged Mel's Mix to be a little light on nutrients, so don't be afraid to throw in a bag or 2 of straight compost. Mel himself recommends planting in straight compost for those in areas of the world where the peat and vermiculite may be hard to come by or just too expensive. Extra compost won't hurt, but if you are light on nutrients, you will be fighting it all season long.

GG

Hi Goosegirl,

I just received my pre-bagged MM order (one bag) from Amazon earlier this week. It was a luxury to be able to transplant my tomato seedlings into 3" pots filled with it (I wanted to plant them ASAP without having to fuss with mixing my own during this past week).

However, I noticed that my batch of pre-mixed MM is not as light and airy as my own homemade version. There seems to be a lot of coir. The vermiculite is smaller in size than what I have on hand and it is seems to be more sparse than the quantity I put in my own MM (perhaps I am heavy handed).

Anyway, I had just a small amount of my homemade MM left over from last season and my instinct was to mix it with the pre-bagged.

Goosegirl 3/23/2014, 8:04 am

[quote="Windmere"]

Goosegirl wrote:

Anyway, I had just a small amount of my homemade MM left over from last season and my instinct was to mix it with the pre-bagged.

I am having a hard time waiting until it is warm enough to get out and run my hands through my MM!

GG

**sanderson** 3/24/2014, 1:16 am

GG, I swear that planting in MM with bare hands is the best payoff to SFG. It's the pure, painless ease that is such a luxury.

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Newbie From Yucaipa, Ca

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	Hello Guest! Welcome to the official Square Foot Gardening Forum. There's lots to learn here by reading as a guest. However, if you become a member (it's free, ad free and spam-free) you'll have access to our large vermiculite databases, our seed exchange spreadsheets, Mel's Mix calculator, and many more members' pictures in the Gallery. Enjoy.