Can you grow a green thumb?

This blog is so badly neglected and needs a re-vamp...so here goes: I recently started a new project and thought it would be a good idea to record the progress. Since I type a lot faster than I handwrite, I thought "It's blogging time!"

For a while now I have been wanting a planter box. The idea of growing my own food really appeals to me. However, I have no real gardening experience. Besides knowing that plants need sun and water, I don't really know much else. Oh well...don't learn how to swim if you don't jump in the water, right?

So last week I casually mentioned to my friend Jay that I've been thinking about making a planter box. Jay is a handy guy and next thing I know he is in the backyard making me a box. Talk about getting down to business!

Jay found some wood we had in the side yard and made a 4x4 box. Everything I read online about planter boxes recommended that it be 6"-12" deep. Mine is 18", but I'm sure it will work. I'm not being too picky about this since the wood was essentially free and is now being put to good use. We then went to Home Depot and bought a 4x4 redwood to cut into posts to reinforce the corners. We also lined the bottom with hardware cloth to keep out the gophers and moles. I don't even know if we have gophers and moles in Ocean Beach, but better safe than sorry.



And, of course, we can't have a story about Jay building me a planter box without including a photo of his dog, Sparky:



Sparky is wondering why we're building this box instead of throwing him the frisbee.

So while Jay is building the box, I dug a hole for it. This is not an easy task. Our backyard is full of thick, weedy crab grass. I had to put all of my weight on the shovel just to get it into the ground. And when I say "put all of my weight," what I really mean is "stand on the shovel and jump up and down on it." But my efforts paid off and Voila! A hole!


On the left you see the clumps of crab grass I dug out.

This is a close-up of that crab grass...nasty thick stuff.

After the hole and the planter box were done, we put the planter box in the hole and filled it with soil. For the soil, I used a mixture of the dirt that I had dug up, Kellogg Garden Soil, and steer manure.

My big concern, since I used the existing dirt in the yard, is that the crab grass is going to grow in the planter box and overtake everything. I removed as many roots from the dirt as I could. I am going to have to be vigilant about weeding! And despite the warning from the lady at the nursery, I did not put down weed cloth underneath the box. Hope that decision doesn't come back to bite me. I fugured that since the box is so deep, it is going to take a lot for the crab grass to come through the bottom.

Beautiful, isn't it? The arched PVC pipe is removable. Its purpose is to provide a frame to drape a cover over if it gets cold or to keep out the critters.

Jay and I were able to do all of that in half a day! Next step...planting!