Weeding and Tilling and Planting, Oh My!

Last week marked the very beginnings of our garden experiment, but we really only had an opportunity to get a small portion of the work done. But Memorial Day weekend we really got things started.


The second bed being marked. I had intended to hand-till the remaining 5 beds, just as I had with the first bed last week. However, half-way through the very first bed this weekend, I snapped my spading fork right in half! All of the ladies were very impressed. ;) In the end, the remaining beds were done using the rototiller, conventional-style.


The "finished" tomato bed. It's not actually finished, since we wanted to put in a better drip irrigation system in that bed (tomatoes don't like water on their leaves), but we just ran out of time.


The garden! In the short-term we'll be using a system of overhead sprinklers, with a soaker hose for the tomatoes. We also didn't have time to do any sort of "proper" animal protection, so we used what we could find around the shop.

Our vegetable garden now contains seeds or starts hoping to produce:

• tomatoes (3 varieties)
  
• peppers (2 varieties)
  
• zucchini
  
• cucumber
  
• meculin salad mix
  
• romaine lettuce
  
• spinach
  
• leeks
  
• beets
  
• potatoes
  
• sunflowers (for ornamentation, not seeds)
  
• marigolds (to deter deer)
  
• herbs (cilantro, basil, parsley, oregano)

In addition to the work in the vegetable garden, Corinne is pretty excited about all of the flowers that we can now plant and enjoy. Of course, that means more weeding...


Corinne weeding around the berm.


Donna weeding the berm.


Hanging baskets of petunias. They really do make a difference in the look of the front of the house!

Updates on the garden as things progress (or don't). Wish us luck!

- Mike (& Corinne)