Tag Archives: raised beds

May 7, 2023 · 10:02 am

How Does My Garden Grow?

These photos are from yesterday. Things are going quite well so far. The plants seem to be thriving, and there are not a whole lot of weeds right now.

If you look closely, there are leaves toward the center of the plant curling up together. The ‘head’ lettuce will form in there.

My spinach leaves are being eaten by ‘something,’ but I can’t find any bugs. I’ll go ahead and spray with Eight to see if I can discourage whatever is chomping down.

The tomato plants are growing a lot each day. We’re trying to get the irrigation system for the flower planters (which includes the tomato planters) to work.

The plants are almost covering the whole surface of the planter now. I only have one plant, though, that has yellow blossoms at this point.

I haven’t planted anything else in the main square foot garden. We’re going one day at a time around here lately, so I haven’t pushed seeing what other plants are available in town.

I’ll be working to see if I can get the two timers in the well house working today. We’ll have a test run later today, though starting Wednesday of next week, we’re supposed to get a LOT of rain.

Do you have a garden this year?

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April 3, 2022 · 1:43 pm

A Little Bit at a Time

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I just came in from working in the garden a bit. I strung pink neon-colored stretchy surveyor’s tape all the way around the garden, working it through the fence in spots so that the deer will ‘see’ there is something weird there in the dark and hopefully won’t run into the fence.

Then I mixed up our two-gallon sprayer with KillzAll and sprayed it under the planter boxes in the veggie garden. My back started yelling, so I’m listening to it and taking a break for awhile. Later I’ll mix up another container full and hopefully finish the job.

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March 23, 2022 · 10:49 am

Beware

In my travels around the yard, I went out to check my early spring raised-bed square foot garden. So far, the plants seem very happy.

“It was such a pleasure to sink one’s hands into the warm earth, to feel at one’s fingertips the possibilities of the new season.” ~ Kate Morton

This is my veggie garden. I have yet to plant radishes, and I’m still on the look-out for head lettuce, since that’s my husband’s favorite. We both love fresh, ripe, home-grown tomatoes, but it’s too early to plant those. I’ve converted two or our handmade brick planters on the other side of the yard on the far side of the house to be tomato planters. I’ll share pics of those when we get them planted later on. As you can see here, one of the next things I’ll do is mix up some weed killer and spray it on the ground underneath my planters. I’ll also spray a perimeter around the whole garden, outside the fence. Another chore is to find our bright, neon-colored tape to string through the fencing so the deer don’t run into it.
Here’s a closer view of a couple of the six planters we have. You can see I’ve really spread the plants out this year. some of the squares are empty, hoping for the head lettuce or radishes, but you can see the wispy sprouts of the sweet red onions on the right of the picture if you look carefully.
Spinach
Leaf Lettuce – Romaine

I’m thankful for a warm, dry home this morning. I really got chilled on my walk, but my spirits are definitely lifted now.

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March 14, 2020 · 11:58 am

Happy Veggies!

Science | How Stuff Works

Spinach

 

Sweet Red Onions

 

Head Lettuce

 

 

 

My veggies were smiling when I went out to take these pictures this morning.  Everything seems to be doing very well now.

I told you how hard I was trying to get the irrigation system going for my garden a couple of days ago. If my husband and I couldn’t get it going, I was going to have to fill my watering can over and over to give them a drink. We FINALLY figured out why we weren’t getting water in the outside agricultural water faucet we have – a faucet control in the well house was turned off instead of on.

Now that it is running perfectly, and the timer is set for daily watering, we are getting rain every day from yesterday through Thursday of next week. A beautiful illustration of Finagle’s Law of Dynamic Negatives.  (Finagle’s law of dynamic negatives (also known as Melody’s law, Sod’s Law or Finagle’s corollary to Murphy’s law) is usually rendered as “Anything that can go wrong, will—at the worst possible moment.”)  We also have it to mean “the more you need it, the harder it is to fix” or “you will get it fixed when you no longer need it.” 

My garden is such a joy. The boxes we built allow me to continue gardening with pleasure, not having to bend over double or get down on my hands and knees over and over. The fence keeps large critters out. The chicken wire around the bottom keeps small critters out. The Mel’s Mix in the boxes (peat moss, vermiculite, and as many different kinds of compost as you can find or make) allows plants to grow well and happily, not having to depend on the quality or quantity of our soil.

The cool weather crops, spinach and head lettuce, will hopefully do really well before it gets too hot here. The red onions will stay where they are until harvest, probably in October.  When it gets a bit warmer, I’ll add yellow squash and radishes, if not some other things, to the garden.

I have two large brick planters on the other side of the house that we converted to be square foot planters. We devote both of them to tomato plants.

So far, I have smiling, happy veggies. Fingers crossed that this will continue.

Have a happy Saturday!

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June 6, 2019 · 3:31 pm

Eau de OFF!

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The rain finally stopped!  I’ve just spent an hour tying up tomato plants for better support and then weeding in our raised bed square foot garden. I used “Eau de OFF!” spraying myself heavily from stem to stern before heading outside. I forgot to wear my sweat band, but I’ll remember that for session 2 today.

I finished two more of the six wooden box planters in the garden. I still need to finish the onion box and then things will be pretty much under control again. I’m planning to take radish seed to get more started in several squares.

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Finished session 2.  I’m still working on the onion box. I asked my good friend Reagan Opio from LinkedIn what I should do about the damaged onion tops. He said, “Leave the ones that are only bent. Cut off the ones that are broken.” So that’s what I’m working on now. As I type here, though, this old lady is huffing and puffing and guzzling ice water. So the rest will have to wait for session 3.

I wanted to share with you the progress on the zucchini! I’ve never grown it before, or seen it grow. The only thing I figured was that it was a vining type plant and would probably take up a lot of room.

The zucchini are almost like a ‘bouquet of bloom.’  There are actually FOUR zucchini growing on this plant.

More on another plant.

And two more here.

And three more here!

I’m about to head out to finish cleaning up the onion tops a bit, and then that’ll be it outside for the day.

I hope YOU are having a fine day, too!

 

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