Newbiest me from wine country

I just popped in from Temecula, CA, an hour northeast of San Diego. We get REALLY hot here in the summer, and I'm starting my very first garden venture. We're out in wine country, so we have animals of ALL kinds here, including gophers, squirrels, rabbits, mice, rats, deer, coyotes and lots and lots of birds (hawks, owls, roadrunners, quail, in addition to the smaller ones).

Research told me we might as well build a house over our new garden in addition to lining the whole underneath with hardware cloth. It has cost a small fortune to build this structure and the box, but we're very proud of it and I can't wait to start digging. Within a week I should have it all ready to go!

I'm so glad I decided to buy the Square Foot book yesterday so I could decide to start my first garden this way. Mel won out!

Will enjoy chatting with you out there! For now......

Cheers!
Newbiest

Welcome again, JTuck

Once you have your SFG Bed built, and maybe a dome or wagon wheel support to hold up some shade cloth, you will be fine.

You mentioned SFG mix at Lowes in your other post, being in Temecula, sounds like you did get pre-mixed Mel's Mix. Wish we had pre-mixed here.

We are also glad you found the ALL NEW SQUARE FOOT GARDENING book. No More Digging! No Weeds! These are the things I love most about SFG.

Well, thanks for joining us and have a glass for me.

Thank you Furbalsmom,

And I will toast you when I plant my first seedling! (yep, I surely don't like those weeds, either!)

jtuck

Good to have ya!

This structure of your sounds quite interesting. What did you make the structure out of? When you can, please post some pictures of it. I'm really quite intrigued. Also, be sure to check out the Pest forum for some tips. Also, take a look around your regional forums. You'll probably find someone near you that can share war stories and battle techniques. If you have any questions please give us a holler. We are always happy to help.

Take care and happy gardening!

It is great to see another SFGer in SoCal. I am south of you on Santee and we get really hot weather as well. It will be nice to have someone to commiserate with when it 100+ outside.

florenceq wrote:It is great to see another SFGer in SoCal. I am south of you on Santee and we get really hot weather as well. It will be nice to have someone to commiserate with when it 100+ outside.

dizzygardener and florenceq....so sorry it has taken me forever to respond!! Adding the garden to all my other chores has kept me busy for months!!

I will certainly post pictures when I can...I've taken millions of them (new gardener's pride) but my husband still needs to download them (another chore I never get to). I'm excited to show you! It's made out of a less expensive lumber than the raised bed (which is pine) plus green hardware cloth. The only thing really pretty about it is the design. I wanted something more elaborate made out of nicer material, but, well, the cost of lumber is really high, so we compromised. Once it has green stuff inside (and all over, I might add), it looks better. The guy who built our closets inside did it...and he like that project more than anything!

flornceq, I would love to visit each other's gardens one day if you're up to it! Husband, Mike, and I went away this summer for that week where it got into the 100s! Garden was pretty new at that point and we were amazed when we got back how much it had grown (we still are!). I had given a few things away before we left so there wasn't much left to harvest. When we got back, I had 6 or 7 foot-long (and fat) zucchinis! The soup I made was great and the neighbors were all happy!! Have only had 1 large zucchini since then!

Thanks for the shared interests you guys! And for the welcomes. I will try to be here a bit more often....right now I'm supposed to be working, not playing! ; )

jtuck2, just stay in touch. We don't ask that anyone post every single day, but we are interested in how things are going.

Make sure you keep those zucchini harvested so you don't get any more baseball bats. The smaller ones are so good when just lightly sprtized with olive oil, a bit of salt and pepper and then grilled along with your burger, steak or chicken.

When I saw wine country I was thinking Which one? As it turns out you are very close to me in Winchester - really Murrieta. I am in a new development and I do not put anything under my boxes and so far so good but if you are a little more rural I would think it would be a good idea. Couldn't hurt.

As people said when I moved here, "But it is so hot there". Yeah and it's the first house I ever had with central air. I am OK. And I LOVE the wine country. Gorgeous. I have a few pics on my blog but nothing you can't see by looking out the window.

Welcome and enjoy the gardening.

Welcome from the Netherlands too... I am also new here and I just set up my very first SFG...
You may have a lot of animals out there, who like to nibble away at your vegetables, but on the other hand you have a great climate :-)

Furbalsmom wrote:jtuck2, make sure you keep those zucchini harvested so you don't get any more baseball bats. The smaller ones are so good when just lightly sprtized with olive oil, a bit of salt and pepper and then grilled along with your burger, steak or chicken.

That sounds great, too...but am I unusual in liking the baseball bats, too? I've heard the flowers are also yummie, stuffed with feta and sauteed...haven't tried that yet.

Chopper wrote:When I saw wine country I was thinking Which one? As it turns out you are very close to me in Winchester - really Murrieta. I am in a new development and I do not put anything under my boxes and so far so good but if you are a little more rural I would think it would be a good idea. Couldn't hurt.
Welcome and enjoy the gardening.

Hi Chopper, thanks for the welcome! Yes, we have oodles of gophers here and a property full of holes to show for it...but not in our garden!!

Some of the watermelon decided to grow through the hardware cloth sides of the garden structure and escape the inside....they didn't last a day....all the leaves are eaten off by who knows what? We are so glad we did what we did!

By the way, I belong to the Temecula Garden Club and one of the members gives free monthly gardening classes at her home. I have learned a LOT from her!!

If any of you locals ever want to come to a general meeting as a guest (also once a month on a Tuesday morning), let me know, we can meet at the meeting! It's an awesome group!

JT

evelien wrote:Welcome from the Netherlands too... I am also new here and I just set up my very first SFG...
You may have a lot of animals out there, who like to nibble away at your vegetables, but on the other hand you have a great climate :-)

Hi evelien, Welcome to a fellow newbie! Yes we are very blessed to have weather where we can garden so many months out of the year! How is your garden doing?