Spring Garden Work

We’ve had a couple of beautiful days this last week so I’ve been out puttering around the yard. I moved one of our raised beds to another location to get more sun, moved our compost bins to tidy up the back yard and make room for another bed for tomatoes and basil (Bruschetta yum-yum), and cut down some decorative grass that I need to figure out how to get to go away permanently. I hope we can squeeze another 2×16′ bed along the side of the house for cucumbers and dill.

I actually got a light sunburn on my neck today. It was absolutely gorgeous out there. I believe the weather man was calling for 65° today and I wouldn’t doubt that we made it.

One of the considerations for us getting a new KitchenAid mixer was the thought of being able to process tomatoes easier with the Fruit and Vegetable Strainer. We had an ‘alright’ harvest of Roma Tomatoes last year, and have decided to put in another raised bed out behind the garage to ramp up production for this year. Amy has had some nice greenery going on in this location in the past but we put the compost bins and one potato tower there last year so it doesn’t look nearly as nice as it once did.

Menard’s had 2×6′ stud grade boards on sale this past week so we decided to jump on it and purchase some of the materials for the new bed. We still have to pick up some more peat moss and vermiculite to fill it, but I plan to get the bed together in the next few days.

I got the compost bins moved back along the fence. I chopped them down to about 3×3 foot each and added some boards along the front to create a trough. This allows us to slide additional boards in the front of the bin to form an adjustable gate. Each board of the gate is removable so filling and emptying will be easy enough, and we won’t have compost spilling out onto the ground like we did with the previous setup. Though they are smaller they will hold more material now with the gate in front. I think that being able to really pack it into a cube like this will increase the mass of the compost and allow the pile to get hotter in the end.

I also finally got the gate put in the new fence to allow easier access to our beds out at the side of the house. I put this off at the end of last summer because I really didn’t know how to go about putting the gate in. I just kinda winged it and it really wasn’t that difficult. I’ll need to pick up a latch for it at some point as we just have a locking hook at the moment.

Our seedlings are coming along just fine. We got started pretty much on time with everything this year. We have Broccoli, Cabbage, Brussels sprouts, Romaine lettuce, and green and yellow onions hardening off now. We have about 35 tomato seedlings up between the Beefsteak and Roma’s, and another 15 San Marzano,  and 3 Baxter’s cherry tomato seeds planted. Amy has some Nasturtiums and Geraniums going, as well as quite a bit of Basil and a few Parsley.

We sowed some pea seeds outside on Sunday, and also put in a few spinach seeds a little early to maybe get a jump start. We’ll have to see if the weather plays along or if we wasted a few seeds.

Here is a shot of the relocated bed. It was back close to the fence and most of the crops in that bed did poorly last year. In early spring it appears that there is adequate sunlight, but once the Magnolia tree fills in it is after noon before it gets sun, and the corner of the house blocks then sun mid-evening. I’d guess it received around five hours at best.

We are also planning to kill off the rest of the decorative grass along the house there and build another bed two feet deep. I’m not sure yet how long it will be. It doesn’t need to be huge for Cucumbers and Dill, and I’m worried about the lighting as well.  I guess we could go most of the length along the house, leaving room for the gate to open, and do some partial sun flowers towards the far end.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 20th, 2010 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Gardening. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.