Finally, my three raised beds are framed, they are all full of a custom soil mixture and I have some plants in them. My friend
Brent (who helped build one of yonder frames) was telling me that once your plants are in the ground, it's one heartbreak after another until you're eating your harvest. I'll be learning about that soon enough.
I still think I don't really know what I'm doing, but that's okay! Whatever I learn from my mistakes this year can be fixed for next year. One big blunder was pouring dozens of seeds into the sprouting cells at the outset—that makes for a tough, tough time when you're transplanting or thinning the seedlings. At the far left in the first photo is my "flower house," the small tent where I'm hardening seedlings. Some are saved for
Kelly O, whenever we meet up next!
I'm using the Square Foot gardening technique, and one of the first questions I got from friends who were checking out my beds in person, was, what's with the string? Um, yeah, that's just me being all OCD. The string is my one-foot grid, just a visual cue for me. Because remember:
I really don't know what I'm doing, so anything helps. Things are looking pretty good so far! This first raised bed is for the kids, especially Rosie (her fuschia butterfly stake is in there, can you spot it?). It is going to be all flowers, with a few strawberry plants thrown in. So far, there's my stinky marigold-border (I'm trying to see if this will deter pests), dianthus & petunias, and of the flowers I grew from seed, there's sweet pea in the back getting trained on the trellis, cosmos, bachelor's button, larkspur, and maaaaybe one sunflower. I just am not sure. My skills at labeling, and later, identification are lacking.
The second, middle bed has a sprinkler in it (off to the left) and Dash's green dragonfly stake, for decoration. You can't see them very well, but I have two tomato frames up anticipating that my 3" tomato plants will grow into them! Everything in here grew from seed, excepting the marigolds. So far, there are peas in the back right which are trellis bound, roma and cherry tomatoes, jalapeno, collards, and carrot plants.
The third bed is still a little random. I just finished it off with compost from our compost bin (will have to write more about the bin & composting later) and have planted a few seedlings that weren't doing that well in the flower house in hopes that they just needed to be in the ground to take off. I'm saving the trellis for canteloupe seedlings (still indoors) and cucumber, and already planted are more collards, jalapeno, and tomato plants. I might get a few seedlings that were professionally grown to plant in here, just to compare!
I have a few other containers on the deck that used to be my main kitchen garden. I planted some puny basil seedlings in this container.
This container already has gigantic chives and sage plants in it as well as a not-so-healthy thyme plant. I added a few teeny parsley seedlings that look very threatened by the chives.
In these containers, there is mint, growing back in from last year and down below, strawberry plants. The berry plants in the raised bed are looking much happier! They never blossomed or fruited while in this container.
Well, that's the update! One note about the compost bin: it does get very hot when it's doing its work and DOES emit smelly gasses. Is it methane? It smells a bit like a horse stable.
Finally, my three raised beds are framed, they are all full of a custom soil mixture and I have some plants in them. My friend Brent (who helped build one of yonder frames) was telling me that once your plants are in the ground, it's one heartbreak after another until you're eating your harvest. I'll be learning about that soon enough.
I'm using the Square Foot gardening technique, and one of the first questions I got from friends who were checking out my beds in person, was, what's with the string? Um, yeah, that's just me being all OCD. The string is my one-foot grid, just a visual cue for me. Because remember: I really don't know what I'm doing, so anything helps. Things are looking pretty good so far! This first raised bed is for the kids, especially Rosie (her fuschia butterfly stake is in there, can you spot it?). It is going to be all flowers, with a few strawberry plants thrown in. So far, there's my stinky marigold-border (I'm trying to see if this will deter pests), dianthus & petunias, and of the flowers I grew from seed, there's sweet pea in the back getting trained on the trellis, cosmos, bachelor's button, larkspur, and maaaaybe one sunflower. I just am not sure. My skills at labeling, and later, identification are lacking.
The second, middle bed has a sprinkler in it (off to the left) and Dash's green dragonfly stake, for decoration. You can't see them very well, but I have two tomato frames up anticipating that my 3" tomato plants will grow into them! Everything in here grew from seed, excepting the marigolds. So far, there are peas in the back right which are trellis bound, roma and cherry tomatoes, jalapeno, collards, and carrot plants.
The third bed is still a little random. I just finished it off with compost from our compost bin (will have to write more about the bin & composting later) and have planted a few seedlings that weren't doing that well in the flower house in hopes that they just needed to be in the ground to take off. I'm saving the trellis for canteloupe seedlings (still indoors) and cucumber, and already planted are more collards, jalapeno, and tomato plants. I might get a few seedlings that were professionally grown to plant in here, just to compare!
I have a few other containers on the deck that used to be my main kitchen garden. I planted some puny basil seedlings in this container.
In these containers, there is mint, growing back in from last year and down below, strawberry plants. The berry plants in the raised bed are looking much happier! They never blossomed or fruited while in this container.
Kelly and Monkeyrotica returned, Don arrived with his son Daniel, we all had some pizza and then set on building the bed. Everyone came out to see what was going on, and even the kids started helping! Rosie (wearing Thea's poodle Halloween costume) shoveled, Thea used the small cultivator (called the "claw!"), Liam swept, and Danny scooped soil. Don built the frame for the bed and we started dumping soil and other components inside. It looked wonderful! (Will add a final photo of raised bed soon.) It was well past 8 p.m. when the Strings got on the road; it was hard to drag myself away, with work still needing doing. We left the remaining bags out to be added later—but the next morning, Kelly's dogs had their way with the manure bags. Why, oh why are dogs so into poo?
Then, we moved on to a more serene and Zen task: transplanting seedlings. Kelly was in charge of carefully thinning and potting the seedlings, and I barely kept up with her while folding one origami pot after another out of newspaper. We might have potted sunflowers, maybe jalapenos? I wasn't all that thorough on keeping the labels accurate in my greenhouse.
As you can see, there is still much to transplant, and much work to do yet in the bed! For the next few weekends, I think I have plans. Anyone want to come and help out?
Wasn’t the weather fantastic this weekend? My yard called to me, begging to be cleared, to be made beautiful and fruitful this year. Last weekend, I met with Kelly and Brent to talk about preparing what is now a lawn for a metamorphosis into a vegetable garden. Brent is a master gardener and both Kelly and I are novices. I’m hoping to get regular updates from Brent & Kelly and we can enjoy our Victory Gardens together! This year I have some serious goals for the garden: (1) to grow vegetables (and flowers, for Rosie) from seed, (2) to prepare of an area in my yard that’s 6’x14’ for planting, (3) to stay on top of the weeds and watering. We're on our way with #1 already, touched on #2 & #3.
Two-thirds of my delightful lunch today came from my backyard! It was a tomato (yes), basil (yes), and mozzarella (no, we don't have a dairy) salad that AJS lovingly prepared for me. He even went out in the rain this morning to clip basil for the salad. What a trooper; he must love me.
AJS caught Rosie and Dash sharing a chair at the dinner table.
