What does your garden grow??

810 House and Garden, you may have been wondering where the garden portion has been to date. Here is living proof that the 810 Garden is alive and kicking. We decided this year to start a vegetable garden in the backyard as part of our sustainable lifestyle. Joe recently joined the wife and passed his LEED AP test, which is the sustainable building professional accreditation program run by the US Green Building Council. This officially makes the Berardi household the greenest house in Bexley. We have a plat of yard that has full sun most of the day which makes it a prime spot for a garden. The garden is approx. 275 s.f. of space to bring us bounty throughout the summer. We have chosen to plant and maintain an organic garden that includes no use of pesticides or chemicals and was started with organic seeds free of any genetic alterations. Most of the plants were started from seed, which the exception of the herb portion of the garden.

To date the most challenging aspect is to remember to water the garden (or in some cases to turn off the water to avoid a 10 hr watering spree) and the untold woodland creatures that have eaten the stalks of the beans, but not consume the sprouts. We have employed some anti-creature methods which include but not limited to: wind chimes, garlic and pepper spread at the base of the plants, lasers, magic and marigolds.

In addition to the garden, we have also started a compost bin for all of our yard waste, garden trimmings and house scraps that include but not limited to: fruit, veggies, egg shells, tea bags, cat hair, egg cartons, coffee grinds, dryer lint. The compost does not smell one bit. It is amazingly supporting a plant life all to itself, as identified by Sachiko as a potato plant. So there appears to be fertile soil already at the base of the compost bin.

The next garden project is to assemble the rain barrel to capture the rainwater off of the garage roof to water our garden with. This weekend there is a rain barrel seminar at a local sustainable building product showroom, Greenovate. We have procured the rain barrel, which is a recycled Mt. Dew syrup container from Cincinnati. Eventually we intend to implement a drip irrigation system from the rain barrel to water the garden.