Building the Beds

The garden is coming together, slowly but surely. We've been busy preparing the beds, so I don't have much plant news. My husband has been a trooper - building beds, shoveling dirt, lifting windows, and pretty much just being an all-around good guy. He's fun to be around when he's working... plus he's great to look at! ;-)

We now have four 4x4 raised beds (15" high). We stapled hardware cloth to the bottom to deter rabbits (and rodents) from coming up from the bottom like they did in my last bed. (Those little buggers!!!) We have an existing 4x12 bed that was badly in need of revitalizing. We removed the trees growing in there (yes, trees!!!), broke up the sod, and we're sifting all the dirt through hardware cloth (almost done with this). We also have plans for one more 4x12 bed. All told, we'll have 160 sq ft of raised bed gardening space.

The area entire area is tilled and ready to be organized into cute little gardens. The beds need a bit of leveling, since our site is on a small slope, which is why we made them smaller (4x4). So it's not as easy as just plunking them down as they are. I have two out of three leveled as I want them. Hope to get to the others tomorrow but work beckons so I'm not sure if I'll have time.

Also found some amazing free soil on Craigslist. Was expecting rocky "fill" with lots of rocks, but got black dirt that is almost like potting soil. No rocks, no sod, and decent aeration. Neutral ph. Testing for lead tonight. Will test for P, N, K tomorrow. DH and I have made two trips already, probably need to do at least one more to get enough. Plan to mix it with peat moss and horse manure (also a find on Craigslist).

Just an Update

It's been awhile since I posted, so I thought a short update might be in order.

General News: I purchased a few more utility lights for my seedlings and we converted a set of shelves into a better spot for my plants. We were getting sick of having to move the seedlings every time we wanted to do laundry. This new shelving system will work much better and be out of the way. It's not completely done yet but when it is I'll post a picture. We also picked up a couple of free windows for the cold frames today. They are beautiful 2'x5' casement windows and it's a shame we'll only be using them for a cold frame. We got them from a construction crew that was replacing all the windows in a whole house... Beautiful large, fancy windows... all going into the dumpster. What a waste. I'm glad we're going to be re-purposing a few, but it's a shame the rest will not be used. I also had a load of free wood chips delivered from a landscape company yesterday. It's amazing what you can get for free when you keep your eyes open (and you make good use of a feed reader!). We'll be working a lot on the outdoor gardens this weekend, so I hope to post some pictures. I meant to post my garden plan so we'll see if I can get to that before we actually have the garden built! On to specific plant news...

Leeks: They are still growing but slowly, but I think that's what they're supposed to do, so I guess that's a good thing. I keep meaning to move them to individual pots but I keep not having enough time. Maybe since they're growing so slowly I don't need to move them?

Pansies: They are also still growing but pretty slowly. I'm not sure if that's right so all I can do is wait and see. All of them have their first leaf set and some of them are starting a new shoot to form their second leaf set (the first "real" set). I'm impatient with these... I'd like to be able to plant them outside in a few weeks but I don't think that will happen. I will start these at least one month earlier next year.

Melons/Watermelons: Four out of five have sprouted and are looking good. I have transferred all the small plugs to larger peat pots and so far they are doing really well.

Others: I really want to plant some annuals for the business planters but I'm much too late, so I may just skip it. Also, I feel like I need to be planting something else but I can't remember what. I made a calendar based on days to maturity, time to harvest, etc. but I can't find it in the mess that is my house right now. We are redoing our home office so things are quite chaotic in the living room. More later...

Melon Baby

One of my melon seeds sprouted yesterday, so I have to move it to the light. I'm worried about it because it's much colder than the heating duct, but I'll have to give it a try.


I'm planting my melon seeds every two weeks, starting early, as an experiment to see if I can get fruit earlier in the summer.


I moved it from the plug it started in to a larger peat pot that I'm hoping it can stay in until I plant it. That may be wishful thinking though, because already the little melon sprout was pushing through the bottom of the small plug!

First Melon Sprout

My melon flat has been sitting on a stretch of duct work for the warmth.  One of them sprouted today!  I'll post a picture tomorrow when I move the plug to the light.