Fun in the Sun

[kengr]

fayanora and I finsally got out to Portland Nursery today. We got a few plants, a couple of pots and a *big* bag of compost. I decided it was worth spending money on a cab to get the bag of compost home.

After that we went to my garden plot which we'd gotten ready for planting almost 2 weeks back and finished the prep work (mostly digging a "trench" to add extra compost where the carrots & radishes were going to go in)

Then it was adding the compost from the huge bag, and mixing soil & compost and evening stuff out.

That took a while with several rests. It's not a huge plot, but neither Fay nor I are in great shape. Especially for hands & knees type work.

Final step was planting seeds (carrots, radishes, cucumber, lemon cucumber, zuccini and some broccoli that I don't really expect much oof) and moving the few starter plants (3 kinds of tomato and an eggplant) to good spots.

Fortunately there are several leftover tomato cages from previous years. I used one each for the three tomato plants and one for the lemon cucumbers (they train well to climb).

From now on it'll be watering, weeding and (eventually) harvesting.

Comments

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

That reminds me, I need to weed today. Gee, thanks. :-)

I've had a rude flower bed by my back steps for decades. A couple of years ago I enlarged it to include the entire patch of ground between the back porch and steps and the driveway. I've had mixed success with this new plot, mainly because last year I decided to see what volunteered, and got mostly one weedy (though spectacularly flowering) plant.

This year, thanks largely to having some stumps ground out last year, I decided to do a proper job. I put a thick layer of much on the previous flower bed and where two stumps were removed (the coarse sawdust that left providing excellent drainage) and then put bagged soil over that. *Then* I planted.

Naturally, within a couple of weeks robins tore apart the smallest of the new plots, out front. Also, a kid walking through my yard apparently (according to a neighbor who saw him) deliberately stepped in the other new plot. Ah, well; both still have stuff coming up, as does the main bed.

[kengr]

Fay was initially unhappy with they way I wanted the plot (actually a raised bed) weeded the first day we worked on it.

I go for the "unless it's a plant you want, it goes". And I extend that down to *tiny* little weedlets, and to digging down several inches to get the grass root "runners" trying to infiltrate.

It's a pain, but as I learned weeding mom's gardens back home as a kid, it means that you won't have to deal with much of anything in the way of weeds for a *long* time afterwards.

As an example, I had to pull less than 5 weeds (all grass shoots) yesterday before we did the final prep and planting.

Now if only the ground wasn't so *low*.

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

>I go for the "unless it's a plant you want, it goes".

Heh. Yeah, that's easy when you can tell the plants apart, especially when they're young.

I often can't. :-)

[kengr]

Well, it's extra easy when you don't have any perennials in there. Then everything that's alive (and some that look dread) goes.

It's when the seeds start to sprout that things will get interesting.

Fortunately, I know what carrot tops look like and have sticks marking the "hills" for the cucumbers & zucchinni.

I think I can remember what radish tops look like (BTW, they are edible if a touch bitter. *shrug* more greens to steam)

And the broccoli is sort of a toss-up anyway. The seeds are because the start plants I got a couple years ago didn't produce heads worth mentioning and went straight to seed.

If they were hybrids, the results from any of the seeds that sprout will likely be pretty sad anywauy. If not, maybe I'll get some decent plants.