Day 1 - Green Intentions

I grew up on a farm. But don't overestimate me -- we didn't farm it, a local farm family rented the fields surrounding our house and did the farming. We had the benefit of running through fields and forest, but any gardening we did was in the side yard with our mother. And after a certain point in our childhood, we all go too busy to continue the garden and it became a fond memory, rather than reality.

Now, I live in the city. And I struggle to keep my grass green, my flowers perky, and, in general, putting the dirt to good use. I really haven't a clue as to what to do with a raised bed. I see friends' gardens full of this and that -- and even when it's random it looks fabulous. But I don't know where to start.

Last year, as a North Ender living near the former Asarco plant, I got my lawn "remediated" ... meaning they allegedly took out a bunch of dirt, put "clean" dirt back in, and then spread sod all over my once spotty lawn.

It was heaven, for a few days. We watered religiously, and scooted our toes through the lush greens after they'd had a few days to put down roots.

But then the raccoons attacked.

Rolling up the edges of the sod to get at the grubs they figured were hiding beneath. Heck, pretty soon they were pulling up the little sod squares all over the place. One morning, my husband claims that he awoke to at least half if not three-quarters of the sod sitting askew from the roly poly raccons hunting for midnight snacks. Needless to say, this didn't do nice things to our lawn.

Then came my mowing attempts. While a push reel mower is great for an established lawn on established soil, apparently it can wreak a bit of havoc on poorly draining new dirt and sod. The clippings I hoped would add additional nutrition into my yard turned to a paste on my lawn that effectively thwarted the previous few weeks' hard work.

Then fall came, and the leaves falling from the neighbor's tree helped not a bit.

So I've stared at my pitiful lawn for the last couple months. Waiting.

Now it's almost spring. And I've decided to take action. I ordered a load of the City of Tacoma's Tagro "soil amendment" product. My husband went over to GardenSphere and got a big bag of grass seed. And today, despite the rain, I went to work. Spreading seed and Tagro, hoping that by summer my children will have grass to roll on ... and I won't rake up sod netting every time I try to collect clippings or leaves.

We'll see how it goes. I have other gardening intentions as well ... big dreams of figuring out this raised beds thing, maybe someday constructing a rain garden or even a small greenhouse. Actually buying plants and planting them, rather than letting them die in their containers. And now that the children are old enough to play while I play in the mud. Heck, now that they're old enough to help.

Here goes ...