Green Thumbs: Gardening in Northern Utah

It’s almost time to start our new garden! We are SO excited to have a nice big spot just out our back door instead of out our door, and down the road about 5 miles! A few months after we were married we happened upon a community garden close to our house while on a hike and we felt like we hit a pot of gold. It was awesome while we were living so close to the spot in downtown Walnut Creek, but after we moved to Concord and Jacob was born, it was a lot more difficult to make the trip to the garden. Plus, we had problems with gophers that ate tons of our plants and I had problems with one of the huge snakes that was squatting on our land. So we haven’t gardened since 2004. This year, we’re BACK!

We put in a big (too big?) order for Burpee seeds that should be here in the next week or so. I started a Family Garden Journal this morning. We have really awful clay soil that would take a lot of time, money and resources to become workable, so I think we’re going to use the idea for “Mel’s Mix” soil from the All New Square Foot Gardening book. And I’m hoping to get some free wood from the construction sites on our street to make some make-do boxes for this year. I’m super anxious to get things going so we can get started on our cool winter veggies right away. I’m also excited that gardening is something Nathan loves, too, so we can spend the time planning and planting and watering (and hopefully not weeding) together outside.