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Health & Fitness

Cedarwood Gardens Twenty-Twelve: The Story of a Lakewood Garden(er)

This is the story of my path to gardening and where I stand as a gardener today. Hopefully you can use this as a tool as you move forward in your gardening endeavors.

At best I would categorize myself as an avid gardener. I certainly am no expert but I spend each off season, aka winter, reading up on what I consider the art of gardening.

I never knew I wanted to be a gardener till I moved back to Ohio.

Ironically I moved back from The Garden State: New Jersey. Having just moved to Ohio I didn’t know a lot of people so I spent a lot of time with my grandparents. With the onset of spring my grandfather started prepping his garden and, being the wonderful grandson that I was, I offered to do the heavy lifting. What began as simple manual labor turned into me taking over all the major gardening duties and so began my gardening obsession.

I started Cedarwood Gardens in 2009, a full year after I had purchased my house.  The first year was dedicated to the major home-renovations that needed to be done but once I was able to start building my garden it, like so many other things at Chez Cedarwood, took on a life of its own.

The first year was small in the grand scheme of it. Out of the combined 324 sq ft that is my back yard and 176 sq ft that I use now, I was cultivating only 78 sq ft in year #1. It was in this first year that I realized how significant plant location was based on their heights and sun requirements, especially in the context of my house and property.

My house sits in an awkward location. Tucked in and surrounded by 7 different garages, I have had to make the best of a difficult situation with regard to the sun and the shadows created by the many garages.

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Part of my solution to this was to use this website.

If any of you are familiar with Google Sky Map, this site is similarly fun and it gave me incredible detail into when and where the shadows will be throughout the growing season. With this information I was able to plan where each plant should go according to its growing preferences. I.e. extended sun exposure for crops like peppers.

Each successive year has been dramatically better than the year before and I expect the same to be true for this season.  I have been testing my soil and making adjustments where needed but taking it slow as this is my first year monitoring for the ever so important N)Nitrogen, (P)Phosphorus, and (K)Potassium.

Another thing that I expect to make this year much improved over 2011is that I am using a method referred to as complimentary planting. I’m certain it is nothing new but it is new to me and I have planned out every crop according to height, sun requirements, soil requirements and whether or not one plant helps another, or hinders.

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My soil is getting close to where I want it to be and I expect it to be reading for planting in the next week or two.  Once the N,P,K is where I need it to be I can start sowing seeds of beets, carrots, and peas, bulbs of onions, eyes of potatoes and horseradish to go along with it.  Soon after that I expect to be picking up my plants from the Lakewood Garden Center as the owner Paul is one of my greatest sources for information as well as great conversation. It doesn’t hurt that he is a local business either.  

 

Though my subsequent “Cedarwood Gardens Twenty Twelve” blog post will likely consist mostly of photos, I fully intend on writing about the progress of the season – good and bad.

As always, please feel free to share your own stories, ask me questions or give me your own advice and suggestions.

Thanks for reading.

-Brandon

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