So, you want to grow your own veggies? (Or, how much will this cost me?)

I actually started thinking about a garden a few months ago when there was looming threat of a drought. "What drought?" you ask. Well, if you have been living in a cave you wouldn't know of it but everyone else (in California) is well aware that are our reservoirs are only partially full and we need another 120-150% of normal rainfall to get 'em back up to normal levels. Along with the threat of drought comes the threat of water rationing and higher water prices.

If you know me (well, Yoel and me but he agrees with all of my ideas pretty much), I have a solution for everything. Back when they threatened $5 and $6-a-gallon for gas, I bought a Prius. And when PG&E threatened to raise electricity rates, I had solar panels installed. When Sunset Scavenger told us they were raising rates - nuh uh -- my answer was that we'll make less garbage so we can request a smaller garbage bin AND PAY YOU LESS! (Worm composting .. I may or may not talk about that in this blog..) Take THAT Sunset Scavenger! And now, when they threaten us with higher water charges (oh, right .. and drought) .. Well, you guessed it -- I'll stop watering the lawn. The lawn costs a lot of money to keep green even with our as-little-as-possible watering practices of watering 5 minutes every other day. I have no idea how much water this is but it is clear from our typical Spring and Summer water bills that the lawn is to blame for our $200+ per month water bills (vs. $50/month normally.)

But I don't want to look at a dead lawn. So I started researching small gardens. My research led me to a gardening method call Square Foot Gardening (they have a website.) I bought the book over the Winter Holiday and read it -- but you don't need to because it's pretty simple and you can look up all the details online. The basic premise is that you build some raised beds using lumber framing, fill it with great quality soil mix, partition off (just for looks) the garden space into 1 foot by 1 foot squares and grow your veggies (or herbs or what-have-you) in those squares.

So the journey begins.

We hired a gardener to come do some (6-hours-worth) of weeding in our yard on February 28. This created a huge heap of yard waste that was piled into the rear of the yard. Unbeknownst to Yoel, he would be bagging this waste a few weeks later and dragging it to the front for pick up. The original idea was that we were going to compost all of it. Turns out there is no way we would be able to compost all of this weed and shrubbery in the amount of space we had so.

I'm going to be honest about the money I spend doing this because it may turn out that I wind up spending a ton of money to grow $50 worth of vegetables when I could have just gone to the store and bought them. But the experience is worth it if that turns out to be the case.

The cost to buy my initial supplies to make 4 raised beds, each bed is 4' x 4' x 6" height, was $30:

8 - Douglas Fir 2"x6"x8' boards cut in half ($25)
1 - box of 1 and 3/4" wood screws ($5)

Pretty simple, I screwed 4 pieces together at the ends to make a perfect square.

Next, I had to prepare the ground. I did the super easy way -- by covering the ground (our lawn) with weed cloth.

2 - 3' x 50' roll of weed cloth and plastic pegs ($35)

Finally, I fill the frames with ($120 worth) of soil from the garden store (Home Depot and Lowe's)
28 cubic feet worth -- I think that's about "a yard". The soil is one of the following, either straight up Miracle-Gro (for flowers and vegetables), Sta-Green (for flowers and vegetables -- a Miracle-Gro competitor), or a mixture of Kellogg brand "Amend" plus steer manure compost mixed with Kellogg garden soil.

2 - 4 cubic feet bags of Horticultural-grade Vermiculite ($50) I had to hunt high and low for these!

I spent about ($20) on various extra seeds: spinach, corn, sunflower, carrots, zucchini, eggplant, cucumber, musk melon (cantaloup), watermelon and sweet peppers. I have some varieties of seed on-hand which I do not count (tomatoes, basil).

So there you have it. So far, $255 spent.