Garden Friday

 

It's Garden Friday once again!

The weather's been-a-changin' this week

to more autumn-like temperatures.

Yesterday we had a steady day-long rain.

It did the garden good, so no complaints from me.

 

Blue Flag leek

 

Last Tuesday a few crops were planted in our first new bed

of the new veggie garden.

I'm happy to report that the carrots, leek, lettuce and snap peas

have all come up!

 

 

 Three additional beds, measuring 3X4, 

were added to the new location.

The idea behind the smaller beds is that they are a bit

easier for someone my size to manage.

I have a difficult time reaching across beds that are much wider.

The same concrete corner pieces were used here,

with boards that were cut for us at the store,

and anchored by rebar through the middle hole of the corners.

It took me only about half an hour to create all three beds.

 

 

With cardboard as the weedblocker in each box,

the insides are filled with branches, twigs and leaves

found on the property.

This fills up the space up to the second board,

while adding organic material to the bed.

 It also saves money by taking up some room in the bed,

so less soil is needed.

As long as there is at least six inches of soil,

most things can be grown quite successfully.

I'm hoping to get these three beds planted this weekend.

 

 

Here's my chook-blocking trick.

So that the chooks will not step into the beds

and possibly damage crops while searching for bugs and worms,

I stretched baling twine through the bed as well as

on the ends and tied it onto the cattle panel.

I also added a small piece of bamboo across the ends,

as an added measure of protection.

We'll see how well it works.

 

More cardboard was laid for grass and weed suppression.

There are three more raised beds to be constructed

and filled on the right side of this picture,

(you can see the flags marking the spots),

but I'm not sure I'll get to it in time to plant.

I'll just keep laying down cardboard as I acquire it,

so that woodchips can be added to the walkways.

I'd like to have a couple of dedicated pollinator beds

in the center between the food beds

as well as some type of vertical element.

It's a work in progress. 

 

We had our neighbor, who is a jack-of-all trades,

cut down this loropetalum bush,

as it was sitting almost directly on top of our septic tank.

It was a bit sad to see it go as the color was spectacular,

and it provided the chooks with ample shade,

but we don't want to create future problems.

 

Grateful for something fun to do while waiting

to get back outside in the garden.

 

May your garden be blessed 

with just the right amount of rain!