Raised garden bed expansion

In light of last year's vegetable bounty, I decided to basically double the planting area of my garden. So I installed four more raised garden beds alongside the house. I'm not exactly sure what I'll do with all this produce, but I don't see any reason to worry about that just yet.

"Dogstreet Farms"

These raised beds are pretty simple to build. For each bed, you need three 2x8x10 pieces of lumber. I like to use untreated whitewood, because I don't want to worry about chemicals that leech out of the pressure treated pine. I usually get the people at the big box store to cut one of the pieces in half for me, since I don't yet own an electric saw. I then make a rectangle and secure each joint with two 3" weather resistant deck screws. I want to weatherseal the wood, so I am going to apply a couple coats of boiled linseed oil this weekend. Again, I'm using linseed oil so that I can avoid chemicals from a traditional wood stain leeching into the garden. Each bed costs about $20 to build.

Filling the beds up is what takes a fair bit of time and money. To prevent the grass from growing up into the new beds, I layer flattened cardboard boxes at the bottom of each. This makes it pretty much impossible for the grass to grow up into the bed, and will naturally decompose and serve as a carbon source for the soil. After that, I take the "lasagna gardening" approach. Each time I mow the lawn, I save the clippings and use them to make about a 4" layer of grass above the cardboard. Next, I layer about 3.8 cu ft of sphagnum peat moss. On top of that goes 120 lbs of top soil followed by 1.5 cu ft of leaf compost. Finally, I pile another layer of peat moss and top everything off with another 120 lbs of top soil. The cost for all that is probably around $40 per bed.

As you can see in the first bed, this material gets me to within about 2" of the lip of the garden frame. As the materials break down, the height of the "lasagna" with shrink, but then I will just keep topping it off with more layers of grass clippings, shredded paper, or kitchen scraps. After about a year, the soil components will be all mixed together and extremely rich.

I hope to get them all filled within the next week or so. For now, the second bed (one of the originals) is the only one with anything actively growing. There are a half a dozen heads of cabbage planted here (for my Mom) and the rest is a mix of bunching onions and scallions (plus some random yellow onions that sprouted in the fridge).

Savoy cabbage "Alcosa" after a rain shower.

"Guardsman" bunching onions (left) and "Golden Sweet" bulbing onions (right)

A walk about the yard

"the estate"

Today has been a rainy Monday. There's not much to do in the garden for the next few days, so I thought that I'd take some time to post some updates about the the yard. As usual, I was joined on this photo safari by my trusted assistants, Copper and Bandit.

Copper Bopper

Bandito

Despite my best efforts, only three of my ten free Arbor Day Foundation trees survived the winter. Most were chewed down to the roots by the deer. Of those that remain, two were sargent crabapples and one was a Washington hawthorn. These guys are all pretty small and started as bare roots, so I am keeping them in pots  for now. Maybe in ten years or so, they will be as big as I am ...

The blueberry bushes are in full bloom now, although we lost numerous blossoms due to the heavy rains of the past few days.

The raspberry bush is growing really slooooooowwwwwly. It has had these same few leaves for over a month now. It just doesn't want to take off just yet. I guess I should be happy it is alive for now.

On the other end of the spectrum, the sage is growing like crazy. The blooms should open any day now. By the way, does anybody need any sage?

This past weekend, the hostas emerged from their winter hibernation.  It seems like they grow an inch each day!

The garlic I planted from the kitchen castaways last November is looking great. Some of the steps are almost an inch across, so I hope that translates into some huge garlic bulbs.

Finally, I found what I think is a cucumber plant behind the hose reel. I have no idea how it got there, but it's welcome to stay. You can never have enough cucumbers.

The countdown has begun ...

Well, the last frost date for my area is May 3, so that means that I have only eight more days until I can start setting out the bulk of this year's crop. So far, I have set out the cabbage, spinach, asparagus, and onions. This weekend, I filled up one of the new beds with soil and sowed the salad mixes. I still have three beds to fill, but they will have to wait until pay day unfortunately.

The tomatoes are running out of room in my germination rack. It's starting to look like a forest.

But that's nothing comparison to the tomatillos. They outgrew the rack long ago, and were relocated to the windowsill. The are looking pretty leggy right now, but they are healthy enough that they have already started to flower.

Finally, the herbs are coming along. I'm still waiting on the rosemary and mint to germinate, but these guys should be ready to put outdoors in about two weeks I think.

basil: Red Rubin and sweet Italian

thyme, cilantro, and parsley

Right on schedule

It's been a while since my last seed starting update, and my germination operation is now at full steam. Everything that was sown during the first round has now grown into a modest sized seedling. Unfortunately, I can't bring myself to discard many of the thinned plants, and I am already well beyond my original plans. In the past week or so, I started a number of herbs as well. Here are the current numbers:

(10) asparagus, Jersey knight [planted outside]
(6) cabbage, savoy, Alcosa [planted outside]
(5) eggplant, Galine
(4) fennel [planted outside]
(10) spinach, Double Choice
(9) pepper, bell, Ancient Sweets
(5) pepper, bell, Maxibelle
(4) pepper, bell, orange
(4) pepper, cherry bomb
(2) pepper, habanero
(7) pepper, jalapeno
(2) pepper, McCarthy hots
(2) tomatillo, de milpa
(5) tomato, Best Boy hybrid
(5) tomato, San Marzano

(4) basil, Red Rubin (it's purple)
(1) basil, traditional Italian
(4) parsley
(4) thyme 

Sarah says that I can't plant them all, so I will have to find a home for some of these little guys, especially the peppers. If I can't, these might "accidentally" get planted in the woods behind my house.

And now, some gratuitous seedling shots:

tomatoes

eggplants

peppers!

more peppers!

tomatillo

spinach