Barefoot Kitchen Witch - In the Garden

Lilac Buds

March 26th...

Andromeda

Last Year's Hydrangea Blossoms

March 19th...

March 21st...
 


 

Bumbling Through the Crocus Bed

Lilac Buds

On March 19th...

 
 And on March 21st...

 

Carnage!

Bill came home from work while I was getting the kids from school and was therefore the first person on this horrible, heartbreaking scene....

(WARNING!!  THE FOLLOWING IMAGES MAY BE DISTURBING TO SOME VIEWERS!!)

Not sure what you're looking at in that picture above?  Here, I'll zoom in a bit closer.  There...see how some of those tomato seedlings HAVE NO LEAVES????  Yeah.  That.

Apparently the very carefully protected tray of seedlings had been pushed away from the window in our living room just enough so that one cat (who shall remain nameless, but we're pretty sure her name is spelled S-O-F-T-I-E) wiggled into the protected area and had a bit of a salad for herself.  And then, on the floor nearby, she threw it up.  Yeah.  WASTEFUL!

So, needless to say, my husband was NOT HAPPY AT ALL with this, and the cat is lucky she didn't end up on the grill for dinner.  (JUST KIDDING!  If we were going to grill up a cat, we'd go with Scratchy - he's much fatter.)  Bill salvaged what he could, and replanted the rest.  But what a blow.  We'd planted these almost exactly a month ago. 

BAD KITTY!

Just in Time for the Rain - Compost and Peat Moss and Manure

Yesterday, before getting the kids at school, Bill and I took a drive over to our local recycling center and picked up some free compost.  Yes, I said FREE.  We'd learned about the place last year, but that was after we'd already composted our own gardens.  This year, with the two new beds in the works, we figured we'd see what the town had to offer.

I didn't bring my camera with me, but I wish I had, because I didn't even know this big area existed.  There's a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuge open space, surrouned by chain link fence covered in what looks like astroturf.  We drove in and saw some people dumping tree branches and the like in a big pile of other tree debris.  To the left - lots of mountains of dark something.  I'm guessing it's the compost on-deck circle, sort of.  When we spoke to the guy who was running things (and showed proof of residency -they're very particular about who gets to use this local stuff, apparently) we were directed to another very dark pile way over to the right.  It looked a lot like the other dark piles, only darker.  We backed the truck right up to it and Bill shoveled while I leaned against the truck (yes, we should have brought a second shovel) and tried not to get hit by bits of flying dirt.

The compost was much nicer than we'd anticipated.  Very dark, and it had a rich, coffee-like fragrance.  (Yes, I'm waxing rhapsodic about compost.)  We took enough for the two 4' x 4' beds, plus a little extra, and home we went.

This is what's left after Bill divided most of it between the two new beds.  This last bit ended up in one of our two new compost bins.

After the compost, Bill added peat moss and then watered both beds.  Peat moss is very dry and it takes a really good soaking to get it to mix in nicely with the rest of the soil and compost.

See (below) how the top layer is saturated, but all the rest below it is still bone-dry?

Bill turned it all over with a big fork and later on added some cow manure to the mix.

And that was that.  It's raining today, supposed to rain tomorrow and into Monday, I believe, which is perfect.  The steady rain will soak into everything, blending it all together, in plenty of time for us to plant the next round:  broccoli rabe everywhere.  Or near enough.  We plant a ton of broccoli rabe in early spring, and it's ready to pick right around the time we're ready to plant other things like winter squash and tomatoes and so forth. 

So yay - everything is moving along nicely!

More Progress on the New Raised Beds

Another gorgeous pair of days yesterday and today, so we did more work to get the two 4' x 4' raised beds set up.  Bill built them on Sunday, and yesterday I dug out the squares in the yard and got rid of the grass.

First, I placed the two frames where we wanted the gardens to be, taking into consideration the path of the sun and the need to keep enough space between them so the taller plants in the back row of the front garden wouldn't shade the shorter plants in the front row of the back garden.  That made sense, didn't it?

Then, once the frames were in position, I marked the ground around them with an edger.

Here's how it looked:

Next, I moved the frames to another part of the yard.  With the edger, I "drew" lines across the grass inside each square to help cut it into more manageable portions. 

 
Then I started peeling up strips of grass and roots. 

I banged and shook out as much dirt as possible, and then tossed the rest of the sod onto a pile nearby.

And then I put the frames back.  That was it for yesterday.

Today, Bill and Alex took a rubber mallet and pounded the gardens down into the dirt, so the cedar frames were resting on the ground. 

Bill added some of our compost and some manure, and tomorrow (weather permitting) I'll get some more compost to add to the mix. 

And then we'll be ready to start planting.

Building the New Gardens

Gorgeous day here today - in the fifties at least, possibly even low sixties.  I'm not sure - our outdoor thermometer is broken.  Well, it works, sort of, but it won't go below 40. 

Today while I was doing other things, Bill and the kids worked in the gardens.

Alex dug out several wheelbarrow loads of compost from the old compost spot behind our garage and piled it near the cherry tree.  It'll eventually go into the two 4x4 garden areas that we'll be digging this week (weather permitting). 

And Bill, Julia and, eventually, Alex, also planted seeds in most of the 45 squares (1 ft x 1 ft) in our raised bed, and then Bill covered the whole thing over with plastic to keep the ground and the newly planted seeds (over 300 assorted) nice and cozy.  I don't have the chart in front of me, but I know there will be carrots, beets, pickling cucumbers, basil, scallions, a couple kinds of cabbage, shallots...I can't remember the rest.  But a lot.

 

And then Bill cut up cedar planks and 8' long 1" x 2"s and made the frames for the two new beds. 

 

The corner pieces will poke down into the ground, and the upper parts of the corner pieces will help to support heavy-duty plastic through the winter when we use them to grow spinach and salad greens and I don't know what else. 

The kids ended up helping, too.

We're very excited about these two gardens.  One, in particular, the one closest to the cherry tree, should get a good deal of sun even in the winter months, and we're looking forward to seeing what we can grow out there. 

In other news, all the seed Bill planted two weeks ago have sprouted, and most of them are in sunny windows in the front part of our house.  We're several weeks ahead of the game this year, and hopefully that will yield more food as the seasons unfold.

 

What's Up Update

 
Most of the pepper and eggplant seeds have sprouted, so over the weekend Bill moved that tray to another of our southward-facing windows.  Here it is, protective anti-cat barriers in place.

In other early-spring (close enough) news, yesterday Bill planted the peas outside in our buckets.  The buckets are protected by a thick plastic covering, which keeps out any snow that might fall and helps warm and protect the earth and seeds, kind of like a greenhouse. 

Soon we will begin adding compost to the other gardens, and digging the two new 4' x 4' gardens. 

It's funny, but even now, as we're just starting up for the growing season, we are looking ahead to next winter, when our winter garden - one of the 4x4 plots - will be up and running and providing us with all sorts of fresh green goodies through the cold months.