Spring Has Sprung

In the beginning there was a Garden of Eden.... How can we encourage people to micro garden for the sake of self, thy neighbor and thy God? Is it convenient and easy enough for anyone to accomplish? What knowledge is necessary to sustain a healthy garden? Is micro gardening even possible?

Now begins the tale of how Marty (me) and Rodney (fellow gardener and friend) went on a journey to try and answer some of these questions.
It all began one December night at Scooters restaurant talking about unique opportunities to reach out to the community. Need a narrative here...
Okay Rodney and anyone else following this blog, let's begin gardening.

Where do we begin? The winter has been unseasonably warm here in Lititz PA so gardening has never been that far from my mind. This week alone we saw seventy degree weather and winter is not officially over yet. Now that the weather is getting warmer it's probably a good time to begin growing seeds.
I had many questions going into this project. What's the best way to grow seeds indoors? What seeds should be chosen? Will there be enough time to complete our mission? With so many unknowns and a clear lack of knowledge on the subject, I decided research was necessary to initiate a successful start to the growing season. Here are some of the findings so far:

• Urban Farm magazine provided a great resource to begin gathering ideas.
• The Remote Gardener shared information on how to grow plants in two-liter bottles and rain gutters. Perhaps we can use the bottles to develop a micro habitat suitable for deck-based gardening. Check out the videos on YouTube.
• A shop light fixture at Home Depot is an inexpensive fixture that could be hung or held on a stand.
• Full spectrum lamps should provide enough light to get seedlings growing.
• Newspaper starter pots provide an economically and environmentally better choice for starter pots than using commercial products.

Seeds, hmm.... Well I have seed packets somewhere in the house. In the next blog we'll talk about seeds and show pictures of the seed starter contraption. Until next time... happy gardening! :-)