Square Inch Gardening: In the beginning...

"Inch by inch, row by row
Gonna make this garden grow
Gonna mulch it deep and low
Gonna make it fertile ground"

David Mallett, The Garden Song 1978

Walk with me. We will take a quick tour around the grounds to get our bearings. You may want to grab a hoodie or sweater as the temperature lately has hovered in the low to mid 50s (that's Fahrenheit as we are located in Texas, and I do not do conversions unless asked nicely) with a stiff northerly breeze straight off the Oklahoma snow field.

 Here in North Texas we are some 27 days out from our average frost-free date. Temperature wise, we've had a mild winter so far, and the drought continues. We're currently under water use restrictions here in River City, so that outside faucet there doesn't look to get much, if any, use this season.

The sorry state of the "South Garden" on Feb. 28, 2013

 The South Garden (above), so-called because the plot faces south, is where we left off yesterday evening, the last day of February. It's every bit the mess it looks. We began clearing out the dead St. Augustine grass along the front edge to better reveal the shrubs we transplanted about a year ago. Damned now if I can remember what they are, but I believe I was told they are hawthorn.

The green along the back next to the house is a volunteer immigrant that may be primrose. I did not plant it, nor was it in the bed prior to introducing the alleged hawthorn. Alleged primrose has one bloom open (not visible from this shot) and a tangle of dried stems bearing seed pods. We collected several of the pods yesterday and will be playing with them later.

Part of our plan of the day is to continue clean-up here and in the east bed on the other side of the front stoop. No, it doesn't look any better than this. In fact, it's worse.

The seed germ for Square Inch Gardening was planted by a TED Talk I watched back the beginning of the week. No, I don't recall the title nor the presenter's name at the moment, but I will look it up later...if I remember to do so. Anyway, this youngish woman, I think it was, was going on about innovations that will help us through the trials and tribulations to come as a result of climatic change and population pressure. One notion that struck a chord was the idea of window farming. 

A vertical window farm is born!

 The main idea behind window farming is growing edible plants hydroponically in vertical columns in windows. Such a system allows virtually anyone to grow a portion of their own food no matter how restricted their personal space may be.

Through the website you can get detailed plans for building your own system or buy a system. Both options are too rich for our fixed income, however, so I decided to ease my way into window farming by improvising (right).

These two plots are hanging in our north-facing bedroom window, a less than ideal location for maximum solar gain. The plus side is that AnniePie can interact with them daily and I'm less likely to forget to tend to them. The yellow plot is a commercial primrose I picked up at the grocery store several weeks back. The other plot is an experiment with Bloomsdale spinach.

Think maybe I'll put some of those spinach seeds in the ground out back today.

Now, the Farmers' Almanac has it that the next "good" dates for planting above ground crops are the 11th--12th. However, their "best" window this month is the 20th through the 22nd. Well, maybe we will start some indoor seed pots today and put some "control" seeds in the ground outside to test this planting by the moon business.

My late aunt Kitty was a master gardener if ever there was one. I'm sure she had lunar cycle farming in her bones, but foolish pup that I was, I never took the opportunity to learn from her when I had the chance. Now were faced with having to read up on it and play with it on our own. If anyone has any thoughts to offer on the subject, I'd be proud to hear 'em. My "comments" section is open to all, so keep it clean, please,

Follow the link in the text for the back story of grandma's pot.

 

 That's my Grandma Saunders' cast iron wash pot there on the left with Stinky, our yard cat. This is about midway down our westside patio garden under an old Texas native pecan tree. We're undecided as yet what to do with this plot, but there is sufficient maintenance chores here to keep us occupied for awhile.

Speaking of which, I've done run fifteen minutes over my time, so that is going to be our tour for today. 

Y'all come back now. Hear? 

 UPDATE: March 3

We found that TED Talk on window farming; A Garden in my Apartment presented by Britta Riley.

 

  

A New Year Begins

Square Inch Gardening

One plant at a time

By Jim Miller

Today is Friday, March 1, 2013. A new beginning. A new year.

Today begins a new year of paying attention, of reflection, of learning. This journal is to be a report of our discoveries, our progress, and what we have collected along the way.

On this launch date, I am reminded of the young Charles Darwin as the HMS Beagle slipped from the dock at Devonport two days past Christmas, 1831, embarked on its second voyage to map the coastline of South America.

My great grandfather John Sanford Saunders somewhere near Knoxville, Georgia, was 18 months old that late December morning.

~~~~~

MARCH ONE awoke suddenly at 6am with a mandate to start a new season of gardening and to record the progress of that year. Before the coffee had done dripping I suspected we were witnessing the launch of an ebook. We further suspected the scope would grow beyond the gardening theme to embrace any number of themes related to being a 65 (almost)-year-old couple on Social Security caught between climatic change and rampant right-wing Christian conservatism.

As it happens, any number of momentous projects have launched on March One through the years. York, Maine, formerly known as Georgeana, Mass., became the first incorporated city in the United States in 1642. Fifty years on in Salem Village, Mass., three young women went on trial on this date, accused of practicing witchcraft.
The Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation in 1781, and nine years later the first census of the United States of America was authorized. The count was taken the following August 2 with 3.9 million souls tallied.
Ohio became the 17th state to join the United States on March 1, 1803.
In 1836 representatives from 57 settlements in what would become Texas met at Washington-on-the-Brazos to consider declaring independence from Mexico. We have reason to believe at least one member of the Saunders clan, perhaps an uncle to John Sanford, was in the territory by this time. President John Tyler would sign the bill officially annexing Texas a U.S. territory on March 1, 1845.
Yellowstone National Park, a grand piece of real estate I've yet to see, became the world's first national park on this date in 1872. Exactly one year later E. Remington & Sons of Ilion, New York, launched production of the first practical typewriter.

~~~~~