Putting the Garden to Bed

Raised beds

 It's already fall. I didn't do much with my garden after the heat/drought struck, but I'm pleased with it none the less. It did well for its first year.

The raised beds have been put to bed. I harvested my herbs and have them drying. Two out of three of the beds have been mulched. I didn't mulch the bed where I grew the tomatoes because I am not certain how I will use it next year. This year it was open. Next year I may want to divide it into square-foot sections as well. I really like square-foot gardening. It lets me dabble in several kinds of plants in a small space instead of planting 90' rows of one thing.

Trellis bed

The watermelons on the trellis were a partial success. Two or three melons actually grew, but I didn't realize I had planted an ice-box melon. They were past the door before I had any clue they were ripe. Heck, the melon wasn't much bigger than a soft ball! I thought it needed to keep growing. There is a bright side. The raccoons didn't get my melons either! The last time I had melons I watched the cantaloupe religiously, poised to pick them at their prime. The day I was ready to get them -- all the melons were broken open and eaten. Coon tracks in the mud told me who the bandit was. :(

Herb bed

Jen and I picked all of the cilantro and dried it about a month ago. We have some nicely labeled jars in the cupboard now. I see volunteer cilantro coming up. We may have some fresh herbs for her salsa into the winter if the weather holds. I hope the rosemary winters over. It survived last year, but was in a more protected area. I'm mulching everything heavily. Time will tell.

Now, I wonder when I'll know the leeks are ready?

Spring is Here!

Spring is springing and we have the gardening bug. I have several plants (two kinds of tomatoes and lots of herbs) coming up under the grow light in the spare room. Pat has reserved a tiller at the rental store. (Someday we'll get the one that was Dad's repaired.)

Now we just need to decide where we want to move the three blackberry bushes that survived last year. I'm leaning toward putting them along the north property line. We put them in the old vegetable garden last year, and now we realize we want to use the old vegetable garden again. The square foot gardening is cool, but we want more than we can plant in the squares. I plan to make permanent strawberry beds in two of the squares and plant salad greens and herbs in the other two squares. The rest of the vegetables will be planted in rows.

Dad always said you should have your potatoes planted by St. Patrick's Day. We're going to be a week late. I purchased seed potatoes, but haven't sliced them to cure for planting. That's okay. Pat hasn't tilled the garden yet, either. He says he will do it tomorrow.

We did get the soil tested. My folks gardened in this spot for close to 50 years, which explains why the nitrogen level is almost totally depleted. It was at 4 parts per million. Our soil is a little acid. It should be 6.5 and it's 7.4. We're supposed to add sulfur. (I see a trek to the nursery to find that.) Pat has purchased some 45-0-0 fertilizer to restore the nitrogen. I don't want to use chemical pesticides, but I don't have any reservations about chemical fertilizers. It's the food the plants want.

I do love this time of year. Summer gets hot and sluggish, but Spring! It's the best time for a 60 yr. old granny to run out and play in the dirt as if she were 6.

Square Foot Gardening

It's been colder and wetter this spring than usual. I guess it's global warming at work. Someone said the ice caps are melting, making the oceans colder which is affecting our weather. I believe it!

At least that's our story, and we're sticking to it! And, that's why we didn't get our garden started till May 1.

Pat had the money to buy a tiller this spring. I said I'd like to try square foot gardening before we spent the money on the tiller. If we like it, we won't ever need the tiller. I bought a copy of Mel Bartholomew's book, New Square Foot Gardening to use for a guide. As it turned out, building 4 4-ft beds. and buying all the soil was expensive, but not as much as a tiller. We invested about $300 in boards and soil and other supplies.

First Pat made our beds. The frames are four foot square.
We attached mulch cloth to the bottom to keep grass and weeds from growing into the bed.
Next we stirred five sorts of compost, plus vermiculite and moss together to make our soil. The soil was the most expensive part of this project, but the Bartholomew's book said this was the most critical factor. Pat was doubtful, but he let me talk him into it.

Third, we filled the beds with the soil mixture. Pat attached the lath that divided our four foot beds into sixteen sections. There was a small miscalculation here. All of the lath was 4 foot in length. Half of them should have been longer to reach the edge of the longer sides of the beds. Oh well... we will make different ones next year.

Time to plant! Since it was so late in the season, we bought many of our plants, particularly the tomatoes. I picked two different kinds of onion sets, two bundles each. We didn't need that many onions. Again... live and learn. Oh! Do I miss Mom and Dad! They were the seasoned gardeners.

This wasn't the year to start a strawberry bed. (Next year!), but I did want to have a couple of plants. They started in strawberry jars on the back porch. Now we have moved them to the railroad ties that make the border of the mint bed. They are lined across the ties with several flower pots of onions. Some how the one pot of catnip didn't survive our 5 cats. Gee. I wonder why?