Gardening: Another Beginning

I've been making good progress lately. The weather has been nice and I've made sure to get out just about every day. My trips are somewhat small, usually not with fitness as my only goal. 

 like that time I rode to wegman's to buy all the chocolate croissants they have.  oh like everyday.

I love summer because my eating habits completely change(besides still consuming lots of chocolate croissants). Gardening is one of my favorite things. I never really understood why some people gripe about it, because I think once you start a garden right, it doesn't need tooooo much upkeep. I will blog about my gardening progress because I feel it coincides with the healthy upbeat lifestyle associated with cycling.

 This is my BAG O' BARK

Lately I've taken a couple trips to the nearby park/woods to gather bark to use as drainage for my sandbox transformed garden. 

I collect buckets

I rent a townhouse, so I don't have much space to garden. I tried to gather buckets from dumpsters rather than spending money on planters. This is the set up for 2011. Some things I've learned from previous gardens(as last year I lived in center-city Allentown)  is to maximize the vertical space. Grow up. Plant vegetables that I know I will eat. Water and proper drainage are key. I've faced some issues with the sandbox outside. First, we weren't sure whether it was ours to use. Luckily the neighbors said that they didn't use it so we could. Unfortunately it had a solid bottom so I drilled holes in it, took out most of the sand, and covered the bottom layer in bark.

mmm sand...

One of my friends who works at Lowe's (yeah that's right I have connections on the inside) is getting me some soil/dirt to fill in the sandbox, then it's planting time.

Here's what I have so far

And also some potatoes

And along with that every year I have either mystery seeds or plants that come up. Mystery plants tend to be my favorite for the very reason that they are a mystery. One year it was a squash.

These are this year's mystery plants. One is a pepper for sure.

I also have some seedlings started in an egg carton, and about 6 of them are sprouted. We'll see where this goes. I can't wait to make some awesome salads and salsa.

More bike-related entries coming soon =) I'm going to go eat another chocolate croissant.