The Man Shed

Here are a few pictures of the shed.

The back utility area.

Square Foot Gardening

As the sun was setting last Tuesday night, Mr. Man and I were working hard to get the raised beds put together. We bought our cedar beds from Farmer D’s, but you can build them from any outdoor, non-treated wood. We have four 4’ x 4’ beds with a depth of 10 inches.

Saturday, I put down a weed barrier under each bed, measured out the paths (3’ on all sides to give us room to weed and harvest), and then we added 20+ bags of Farmer D’s organic compost. Take a look, isn’t this beautiful looking dirt?

We mulched all the paths with cedar and Mr. Man made the grids for the beds.

We planted organic Jerichco Romaine and Sunset Lettuce seeds, 4 per sq. ft.; Cherry Belle Radish and Danver Carrot seeds, 16 per sq. ft.; and white and yellow onion transplants, 16 per sq. ft.

After thinking about it, we decided we’d better fence off the area as Marley will literally eat anything. We added a 3’ fence and Mr. Man will make a gate this weekend.

We plan on planting drought tolerant grasses in front of the fence, and we still need to move the cypress trees to make room for the chicken coop, but we are on the way. We’ll plant beets, spinach, peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, broccoli, beans, potatoes and cabbage as it warms up, as well as a variety of herbs, interplanting some flowers, such as Sweet Alyssum with the lettuces which attracts lacewings and syrphid flies, which according to Michael Pollan (Ominvore’s Dilemma) eat aphids that eat lettuce.

Marley’s First Road Trip

Marley tagged along on our trip to Florida last weekend. We left on Friday morning and made terrific time. Even so, I’m sure it was a long, boring ride for Marley. He was a trooper though, riding most of the time in either my or David’s lap, depending on who was in the passenger seat. He was the hit of the weekend. Mom gave him a small piece of cheese on the first evening and made a friend, he spent the rest of the night in her lap.

On Saturday (Valentine’s Day), my sister Brenda and her husband Cal, and my brother Troy and his partner Jeff, joined us to go antiquing in Dade City. About half an hour north of Tampa, this is a quaint little town with several antique shops along the main street. The weather was beautiful, in the mid-70’s and perfect for wandering around. Mom found a couple of pieces of McCoy and we had a good cuban sandwich for lunch (still nothing like the cubans you get at Havana’s in Atlanta). In one shop we noticed a couple items you see pretty regularly at Scott’s Antique Market for half the price they were selling them for here.

That night we had reservations for nine at Bern’s Steak House to celebrate mom’s 75th Birthday. Bern’s is a Tampa institution and if you’ve never been there, it’s definitely worth a visit if you’re ever in Tampa. It looks like an old Bordello inside, with red walls and lots of portraits in gold frames. A little garish? Maybe, but it’s also part of the charm. Bern’s grows all their own “organic” vegetables on Bern’s Farm, raise their own cattle, and has a huge wine cellar containing one of the largest collections in the world, over half a million bottles—be sure to take the tour after dinner (you can also tour the kitchen). The steaks are awesome, dry-aged and ordered by size. Each meal is accompanied by french onion soup, a house salad, baked potato and veggies. I started my meal with the escargot, which was good—the snails were so tender—but, I wasn’t thrilled with the green sauce. My brother Bruce started with the scallops, which were wonderful, cooked just right so that they practically melted in your mouth.

On Sunday all nine of us went to the Lucky Dill in downtown St. Petersburg for lunch and then wandered along the pier and visited the tiny aquarium. Then Brenda, my sister-in-law Dawn, and I took my mom shopping for her trip to Ireland. She protested, but I think she enjoyed being with the girls and having the attention focused on her. And, she allowed us to buy her a couple of things.

Monday morning we went to breakfast and then headed to Plant City, my former hometown, and wandered around in the shops there. We decided to take Marley with us and carried him while we were in the shops. When we slipped into a pet shop that sells rescued animals to see some Chihuahua puppies, Marley was very disinterested and refused to go near them. They were adorable! We then headed to the local vegetable stand to buy tomatoes (there is nothing like Florida tomatoes) and strawberries. That afternoon, we noticed lots of Robins in a vacant lot down the street and in mom's yard eating berries from the tops of the palm trees. Mom filled up the birdbath and the birds came from everywhere for a drink and quick bath.

The Trashing of Grant Park

Is it just me, or has everyone else noticed the large amount of trash in the park lately? Why is this? Maybe it’s due, in part, to the lack of trash cans? I’ve noticed the new dog stations along Cherokee and at the unofficial “dog area” (Kudos to whichever organization provided these—now, if we can just get people to use them!) and the new red “hot coals only” cans, but where are the trash cans? Other than a few near the pavillions and along the paths, there seems to be way too few cans for a 131 acre park.

Grant Park is a public park owned by the City of Atlanta, second in size only to Piedmont Park, yet Grant Park doesn’t seem to get the services Piedmont Park does. Is it too much to ask that the city provide an adequate number of trash cans? The City of Atlanta’s Office of Parks’ Mission statement is...

“To improve, preserve, protect and maintain the City’s parks and public green spaces as a safe and enjoyable enhancement to the quality of life for all residents and visitors to the City of Atlanta.”

I guess in Atlanta all parks are not created equal. So, how can we get trash cans in the park? Maybe the Grant Park Conservancy can hold a fund raiser—I, for one, would make a donation—or maybe we can beg the help of the Arthur Blank Family Foundation, which has a generous history of contributing to Atlanta’s green spaces. In the meantime, how about we all take pride in our park and put to good use the manners our mothers taught us and clean up after ourselves—including cleaning up after your dog.

And so it begins...

We have begun planning for the chickens and vegetable garden. We’ve plotted out where the raised beds are going to be: we are doing 4 4’X4’ beds using the Square Foot Gardening method. Mr. Man is spending this weekend tilling the soil where the beds will sit so that we can keep weeds down to a minimum.

Later today we will head up to Farmer D’s to pick up the ready to assemble cedar frames and some of his exquisite organic soil—we want to give the garden the best start we can, especially considering our inexperience. We are planning on planting tomatoes, beans, carrots, broccoli, potatoes, onions, garlic, spinach, eggplant, squash, beets, lettuse, pepper (both sweet & jalapeno), and strawberries, as well as basil, thyme, and several other herbs. Guess we’ll be spending a lot of time in the backyard this spring/summer. Hopefully, we will be rewarded with fresh vegetables for ourselves and, if we’re lucky, our friends and neighbors.

We are also looking for the perfect coop plans to purchase so that Mr. Man can practice his carpentry skills. There’s a great website at http://www.backyardchickens.com/ that has great information about raising chickens and coop designs, and we have spent many an evening trying to decide what we like best. We want something relatively small, but with adequate space for 3 chickens, and it has to be attractive. The coop will be located in the area at the back of the yard, where the vegetable beds will be. We intend to fence off this entire area to keep Marley out of the garden—he will eat anything and I don’t plan on sharing my tomatoes with him.