Welcome to Gerich Gardens

At the prompting of my wife and a few friends, I have decided to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard would be more appropriate) and start documenting my adventures as an organic urban gardener. When we first bought our home in Lansing Michigan, I discovered a border along half of our backyard of somewhat abandoned raised beds. Having always wanted my own yard to grow things in, I attempted to put some plants down in the spring of 2011.

A few things were working against me here. 1) Looking back, I was woefully unaware of exactly how gardening worked other than you put seeds in the ground and they grow. Simply put, I had not done my research. Prompt set up for failure. And 2) We had a tree in our backyard whose canopy was rapidly expanding and saw fit that most of our back yard was shaded from all but about 25% of the sun from May until October. I started getting a hint that may be a problem when the grass refused to grow due to lack of sun and quickly turned into a mud pit. 

Now, after my failure and disappointment, I set out to do some reading and research to see what I had done wrong. Answer? Nearly everything. So I set out to learn some more. By the next year (2012) I vowed to plant tomatoes, cayenne pepper and basil. It worked and I harvested large amounts of all three. Now looking back on even less then a year later I feel like I was somewhat in the dark still. I've spent so much time reading and researching that  feel like I am going into this year with an entirely new view point (and I'm sure I'll feel the same way next year about this years growing season). For instance, last year I didn't properly plan on trellising or staking the tomatoes so I was caught completely off guard when they grew and sprawled 8 feet long, running over the puny tomato cages I had set out. Despite that, I still managed to harvest plenty of tomatoes that, when processed and frozen, stayed with us well into December and January.

As I've mentioned, I've spent this past fall and winter reading up, studying, acting like I was going to take a huge test (which, lets face it, I kind of am and my grade will be decided by the amount of produce I... well, produce).

So throughout the season, I will be posting about the different steps and where I am at in all of it with my garden. I hope anyone out there reading will feel encouraged to try some things for themselves, to ask questions, and to share. Because, for me, that is what a lot of this is all about. Sharing knowledge, experience, and the literal fruits of labor and love.

Here are a few pictures from the Garden last summer (2012)