Today Chris, Mackenzie, and I attended the Nashville Urban Gardening Expo at the state extension office and agricultural center on Edmonson Pike. I’ve only been to one Master Gardener ‘s expo, and that was back in Conway. We weren’t sure what to expect.
The entire staff of volunteers was incredibly kind and helpful. Mackenzie was dubbed a master gardener in her own right, and she enjoyed the kids’ booths and face painting.
We enjoyed visiting with lots of neighborhood urban gardeners, and several organizations that are committed to school gardens and gardens designed to help communities in need, both in providing sustenance and income. We also picked up seeds at the seed exchange.
It was a great experience, and I’m sure we’ll be back next year. I’m excited to get involved with the Inglewood gardening group, the Nashville Food Project, and some of the school programs.
When we got home, we continued working on our own garden at home. We purchased a cubic yard of garden soil from Gardens if Babylon and moved it by the bucketful to various garden beds. We also cleared out the rest of the poison oak and trimmed the foliage hanging over the fence.
We still have a lot to finish. It turns out that there may be some concrete slab underneath the topsoil where we planted some of the garden boxes. We have debated moving everything and digging up the concrete, but I think we’re going to see how the season goes. If we build the garden beds higher and deeper, I think they’ll be just fine.
We’re excited about adding a low wall/garden bed on the left side of the garden to finish enclosing the space. I’m hoping to plant either wheat grass, herbs, or lettuces there. Or maybe a row of lavender. We’ll see.
The to- do list goes on and on, but we’re happy with our progress so far.
We have some repair work on the existing boxes to do and an irrigation system to work out. The potting bench has a long way to go. There is more gravel to rake, shovel and haul. And we need to add more dirt. Always more dirt!
So far, we’ve planted blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, grapes, strawberries, tomatoes, peppers, butter crunch lettuce, broccoli, arugula, kale, pole beans, cucumbers, watermelon, and a handful of herbs. We’re having fun, and it is so exciting to work with our hands and tangibly see our vision become a reality.
How is your garden doing? What are you planting this year?
2 Comments
This looks amazing! So impressive – you have accomplished so much, so fast!!!
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Wow, that looks amazing! We have 2 sad little boxes that are totally falling apart. We planted garlic last fall in them. After we harvest it, we’re going to rip them out and rebuild. We’re going to do a slightly different layout, which will involve moving a *lot* of dirt. So, we probably won’t grow anything else this year. I see a lot of visits to the farmers market in our future!
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