Learning Lessons

Over the few years I have been gardening, I try to cultivate one type of plant with perfection in mind. Last year, lettuce was my achilles' heel. I could not get it to grow. So, in retaliation, I have perfected my lettuce growing techniques. Needless to say, a few other veggies needed my attention and did not get it because I was concentrating on lettuce instead. Between bugs and a very bitter frost my broccoli, purple cabbage, cauliflower and Chinese cabbage bit the dust. Well, at least I know which veggies to work on next year. I figure if I pick one veggie per year and learn how to grow it really well then I will have a sensational garden by the time I am 60. Well, here is to ever improving and growing older and wiser.

Thriving lettuce.

Bug eaten and frost damaged....dead.

Well, at least the one behind the failure might make it.

With a Little Help From My Friends......

This past weekend found us enjoying the Easter holiday with family. After all the eggs were found and the children had safely come down from their sugar highs, we went about adding a garden to the backyard. In two days we were able to put in raised beds containing a herb garden, summer veggies, raspberries and strawberries. Brian and Jeff went after the construction side of things. They broke up nine pallets and constructed raised beds. Tabitha and I went after weeding out the sod, breaking up the dirt and planting the beds.

The pallets to be broken apart.

The lawn marked and grass pre-treated with Round-up to prevent a crab grass infestation of the beds.

We broke up the sod and removed the top layer of grass. 

The beginnings of the raised beds. Stakes hammered into the ground and boards screwed to stakes. 

A layer of paper over the dirt and cardboard at the sides to prevent grass from creeping in and taking over the beds. 

Store-bought garden soil filled in the beds. 

Trying pots out in different places to check spacing.

Herbs, tomatoes, basil, pepper, cabbages and broccoli planted. 

A side view of the beds. The side boards were screwed into stakes that had been hammered into ground. All the wood came from the pallets. 

The plants were mulched with straw. Lettuce, spinach, carrots, green beans, beets, sweet peas, zucchini, Chinese red noodle bean, cucumber, radishes, yellow squash and watermelon seeds were planted in the remaining space. The Chinese red noodle bean, cucumber, watermelon and sweet peas will be trained to grow vertically up the fence.

Another bed was planted with raspberries, red and yellow, and strawberries.

Here they are mulched with straw and ready to grow.

Labor of Love

  Spring has arrived and with it all the required tasks to get that garden growing. This is our second year at this garden site and already we are seeing the payoff from hundreds of hours of work and hundreds of wheelbarrow loads of amendments and mulch. Yes, we are crazy. Last year saw us struggling to make garden beds and fight back the invasive Johnson Grass. This year I can concentrate on intensively and successively planting those beds. I just need to alert all the aphids, beetles, worms, slugs and small rodents to stay out of my territory!

This is a quick look at our starting point in February of 2011!

 This years starting point, February 2012!

March 2012

Yellow Snow Peas climbing the trellis.

Rocky Top Mix Lettuce (loved by children and slugs alike).

At least my perennials can survive the bugs.

Flower beds under the trellis.

Tomato, peppers and basil starts.

My Tarragon has gone wild.