And the Garden is a Go!

As fall begins, we have remained optimistic that if we pushed ourselves, we might be able to get a little bit of growing time in this season before the weather gets too cold.  This week, I can proudly announce that we have veggies planted in our fenced-in garden plot!  Whether they will grow successfully is another story - one victory at a time for now.

Since our soil is so poor, our plan is to use 4 or 5 raised beds, each 4' x 8'.  Untreated cedar is the wood of choice for this since it is naturally rot resistant and doesn't leach chemicals into the soil.  Nick's original plan was to build all of his own garden beds.  However, the cedar wood we need would have to be specially ordered and is a bit on the pricey side.  It's doable, but not right now.  As an alternative, he settled on a raised bed kit from Home Depot.  Two 4' x 4' adjacent sections, one ten inches deep and the other seven inches deep, separated by a partition.

Not ideal, as the cedar is only an inch thick instead of the two inches we would prefer, and we'd prefer two deep sections instead of one deep and one less so, but it was a place to start.  But then, last night my "wicked smaht" husband realized that since the boards simply slide into slots in the posts, he could pull the three divider boards out and slot them in on the edges of the shallow side to make its walls just as high as that of the tall side.  Voila!  A 4-ft by 8-ft raised bed that is ten inches deep all over!

 

L to R: bell peppers, tomatoes, brussel sprouts, broccoli, basil

It may not look like much, but this is our first real garden in years (since living in Massachusetts), and our first raised bed garden ever.  Nick transplanted our tomatoes and basil plants, and bought some young bell peppers, brussel sprouts, and broccoli plants.  I have planted seeds for lettuce, radishes and carrots (things that grow quickly and should still grow in the fall).

Our rosemary and mint will stay in their pots, where they are both pretty and doing well.   I'm excited about my garden markers too, though they're not actually done yet.  I spray-painted wooden paint stirring sticks (free) with Rustoleum chalkboard paint (five bucks) and am writing plant names on them with chalk ($1.50).  Ultimately I plan to use a China marker since they won't wash off in the rain, but Nick finished the raised bed faster than I got the markers ordered on Amazon, so it's chalk in the meantime.

Apparently our gardening was not terribly scary, either, because there was at least one doe standing in the woods nearby, just far back enough that we could barely see her.   We see them every day now, sometimes two or three times a day.  Hope they leave the garden alone!  Our bird feeders are attracting black-capped chickadees, nuthatches, and at least one tufted titmouse, plus some really scraggly-looking juvenile cardinals who eat the seeds on the ground that the other birds scatter.  No finches so far but we do have at least two species of hummingbirds at the hummingbird feeder!  Now if only we could have all that nature without the mosquitoes...