Garden 2010

The garden is enduring another experiment. Last year we knew we were not going to be able to keep up with the garden, so I covered most of it in plastic to keep the weeds from taking over and to kill the weed seeds that I knew were there. This year we decided to cover it up again, but this time with some contractor grade weed block, with mulch on top of it, and switched the whole garden over to raised beds.

Before we got the first of the raised beds done FabHub planted some onions, kohlrabi, and cabbage in the ground. The first raised bed got banana peppers, yellow squash, and cucumbers. The second bed got tomatoes.

And then everything except the onions froze.

We had it all covered, but took the covers off before work. oh well. What can you do?

So we mostly started over again.

Now we are back to all the originals, plus some zucchini with the squash, basil with the tomatoes, beans got their own space, and more peppers and watermelon on the end. Mix in a whole bunch of flowers and this should be a really interesting picture in a few weeks.

The first two beds got "topsoil" from a local By the Scoop seller. I saw the hillside he was digging the dirt out of, not much Top to the middle of that hill. The dirt was about as poor as what I already have, but with fewer weed seeds.

The next two beds got bags of "topsoil" from Lowes. They had 40 pound bags for a price that wasn't much different from the By the Scoop place and of course since FabHub had his new big boy truck with us at the store we had to buy a whole pallet. It was a load and we didn't use all of the dirt, yet.

In an attempt to protect the raw wood I lined the boxes with more heavy duty weed block. I don't know if it will work, but I tried. I just really didn't want to use treated wood for food.

Just in case it ever stops raining, I created an irrigation system to get the most out of the hose when needed. Water comes in to the bottom of the first Y and up the left side PVC to water a row or box and then out the right side hose to the next bed. Repeat all the way to the end.

We are going to build two more boxes later. That will mean more dirt, more cutting up garden hose, and more plants.

I don't know if I will need that irrigation system with skies like this though.

But never forget that no matter the weather we can always dance among the flowers.

These buckets should be crazy in a few weeks too. Come back and check it out!