First day in the garden

Sunday was a pretty nice day and it was my target date for starting to get the garden in order and maybe planting a few seeds in cold weather protection.

So this is what the garden has looked like in the last few weeks/months

<-------- That's our compost pile

<-------- Not to be confused with the honey pile






  And

The garden plot is 20 x 8 ------------------->

As you can see lots of leaves and dead plants from last year, but not for long!




We unraveled the compost and managed to spread it across the space of the garden. It took a while but not as long as I would have thought considering it was all of the veggie scraps and garden clippings since the fall - yikes!

In Bed #1 I planted greens. I think I am a bit late in the game but it's worth a try. There are 4 different variety of lettuces: Red Romaine, Romaine, Black Seeded Simpson and Green Oak, our beloved Collards and some Chard sprinkled about. I tried to pack it in nicely to keep the weeds out and ground moist.

The next bed (Bed #2) has more fragile seeds and therefore has a greenhouse. I am crossing my fingers that the seeds do OK. I planted a lot of seeds of each variety with the hopes that the hardy ones would reign supreme - one can dream right!

Here we have: Ugly Tomatoes, Purple Peppers, Roma Tomatoes, Yellow Peppers, Eggplants, Banana Peppers, Brandywine Tomatoes, Beefsteak Tomatoes, Black Krim Tomatoes, Oxheart Tomatoes... Oh yeah and since this year I am trying my hand at companion gardening there are also Cosmos, Zinnias, Sunflowers and Wildflowers mixed in. I'm crossing my fingers that the 20 degree nights we've had won't be too horrible.

On to Bed #3. This is our squash bed...

Remember the two greenhouses I was so excited about, well I only had one of them in the box. So I improvised with all the jugs and bottles I could find. Good luck in a household that doesn't drink bottled water, milk by the gallon or soda. I made do and we have Cucumbers, Zucchinis, Butternut Squashes, Spaghetti Squashes and Calabazas. I also want to plant companions, maybe more Sunflowers, some Nasturtium and Tansy.

I've been reading this book and learning a lot about companions - it makes me love bugs!

I definitely want to include more red and blue flowers in the vegetable garden to attract the beneficial insects and hummingbirds. Jared saw one in one of our sunflowers last year and now it's a mission to get it back.

This is what the garden looks like now

Bed #4 has a couple of Chards popping up which is great, that bed is still TBD we have lots of seeds yet we just need to figure out what to put in there.



If I don't see anything popping up by mid April then I will go and plant my lovelies again. Hopefully I'll also have that second greenhouse by then.

Jared is also starting an allium garden and a curry garden - how cool is that. We may need to reseed but since these are seeds in our pantry it's not a big deal. Also all of the seeds I used were either from produce we ate, like the yellow and purple peppers or seeds that friends gave us like the cucumbers and zucchinis. Some of the seeds are from last year so I hope they do OK.

I guess we'll know soon enough!