Garden Update

I haven't been raptured. I'm okay with that. I just planted a garden. I'd like to see it through.

The tomatoes, peppers, tomatillos, and eggplant are all doing fine in their pots. I transplanted thyme, oregano, parsley, and lovage into some of the tomato pots, and they seem to be liking their new homes. Kale, broccoli, cabbage, garlic chives, and red onions are all looking great in the raised bed. The L-shaped vegetable bed is quiet except for the pumpkin and loofah transplants.

Then there are the direct sown seeds. The snow peas were the first to poke through the surface. Yesterday, I noticed there were also radishes of the French Breakfast variety, kohlrabi, and chioggia beets sprouting. With this week of thunderstorms, I had some fears that some of the seeds would get washed away. I was dumping excess water out of pots, and checking the beds daily. Today, there are Scarlet Globe radish, Black Spanish radish, Sylvetta arugula, golden chicory, and Amish snap pea raising up little leaves.

A neighbor noticed me and called out a good morning. He asked me how we built the bed. He wants to build his own.

The bed is about 36' long. It's 5' wide for half of it, and 3' wide for the other half. This is because of the fence the bed is against - the raised bed fits the shape of the fence.

Beds are generally 4' wide to make it easy for you to reach in for sowing, weeding, harvesting, staking, etc. We used untreated wood for the bed (chemically treated wood is a bad idea for a vegetable garden). It's pretty easy to take a drill and secure wood together at the ends. You can get four 8' long pieces of 2" x 10", cut two of the pieces in half, and have a 4' x 8' vegetable bed. Instead of going through the back-breaking work of turning over sod, lay down layers of newspaper. Once the soil is put in, everything growing underneath it will die.

For soil, I used GreenCycle. They delivered a mix of organic topsoil and compost to my driveway. We then hauled it all over, using tarps, to the beds. It was hard work, but I had some wonderful friends helping me out.

Pictures coming soon.