Early August

Well, the story of my two little raised beds has had more plot
twists than an Agatha Christie thriller.   We've lost some of the
largest and seemingly most robust looking crops, some had been
given up on only to suddenly start producing, and we've enjoyed
sampling some of the summer's output over the last month.

I'll try to sketch out the scorecard.

Broccoli Rabe-  F

Cos Lettuce

Carrots

Fennel

Basil

Parsley

Rosemary

Tomatoes

Pumpkins

Squash

Back from vacation

We've been away for five days and its like we have a whole new
garden.  You sort of expent to come back to an untended garden
and find it half dead, especially with this heat, but it looks
like those stingy tomato plants have yielded as many as 10 new fruits,
and the pumpkin which seemed unable to produce female flowers
that didn't shrivel up, now has two strong females ready to
be pollinated.  It gets you thinking a bit superstitiously, as if the
plants were playing a trick on the gardener all those days as he
hovered over them looking for any sign of production.

So to ponder the conditions that finally caused things to jump to life.
Temps were high 80s/low 90s and sunny for the entire week.  Basil
and tomatoes love this but the flip side is obviously the plants cant go
too long in those conditions without water, as attested to by large
swatches grass starting to go dormant.   Seeing the forecast for this
heat wave the day before heading out, I made it a priority to hook
up the sprinklers to a timer so the garden could get sprayed twice a
day.  I also had some drip irrigation coming from the rain barrel, but
with the leak in the barrel it looked as if that supply would run out in
a day or less.  I also threw some mulch down to help retain what
moisture was in the soil, and the plants must have gotten a healthy
enough sip each day.  Perhaps I was over-watering before and it was
delaying fruit set.

Also, its likely the psychology of the novice gardener was a strong
factor, in not allowing for the fact that nature takes its own time.
Ok, so some plants wait for July to get busy--there's still plenty of
summer left.

Bush Beans struggling

So all five bush bean plants have mysteriously started yellowing 

and dropping leaves.   The internet says I might have done them

harm with over-zealous watering or zealous over-watering, take

your pick.

Boxes go up!

The bed is now filled with gravel and leveled.  I added a big piece of
flagstone (left over from the patio job a few years ago) under the down
spout as a slab that the rain barrel will rest on.   I plan on building
a base of cinder blocks to elevate the rail barrel to a position where
it can gravity feed the garden via a soaker hose.   I can finally put
in the raised bed kit I ordered a few weeks ago.

Cedar planks being used for the boxes.

I like the clean look of the cedar and gravel.  The planks are pre-drill and simply

staked into the ground.

Decision is made to use the smaller pea gravel.  Its just
more appropriate for decorative gravel beds.  The drainage
gravel would make it look more like a civil engineering project. 

Ordered up a pallete of 36 bags from Home Depot.   I thought
I was ordering 2 cubic yards, which Barnaby, our landscaper,
had recommended.

But I did the math wrong at the store: one bag is .5 cu feet,
and there are 27 cu feet in 1 cu yard.   27 divided by .5 is of
course 54 bags.   So whatever I was thinking, I now have
1.667 cu yards of gravel sitting in the driveway.  I hope its
enough--it sure looks like enough.

Seedings waiting to be planted.   The giant

in the blue container is a pumpkin plant.

Store bought on the left,  grown from seed on right.

A pallette of pea gravel from Home Depot.

NY Times article on vertical gardening

I've yet to stake a tomato plant, but for those looking
to take vertical gardening to the next level, check out
these people.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/06/garden/06vertical.htm

Construction, Day 2

The next day, Sunday, I finished excavating the full bed.  I then

went to Home Depot and bought 2 bags of natural gravel, because

they had both drainage gravel and pea gravel.  I poured two little

piles next to each other and am trying to figure out which look

to go for.   

The fully excavated bed (shallower this time to save gravel).  

The rest of the fabric is staked in and the remaining white 

gravel added for underfill.  I'm still going toneed to buy 

A LOT of gravel.

The natural gravel looks much better against 

the fieldstone wall of the garage.  Now have to 

decide which size stone.  The larger drainage stone

is closest to camera.

Construction, Day 1

The location on our property that has the best potential for a 

garden is along the south facing wall of the garage, not far from 

the kitchen door.  Despite tall trees and rooflines, it manages to 

get sun for 10-12 hours, from May thru August.   

I was told to put gravel under the wooden planks of 

the raised beds to keep them from sitting on wet ground, so 

I decided to build a cool curved gravel bed as a first step.  We

had five buckets of white pea gravel sitting in the garage, so I 

was hoping I could have the whole job done in a day, with

materials on hand.

Ground is broken on the gravel bed.  It will be excavated

to the line made by the garden hose.

Ok, not enough time today to dig out the whole bed, so 

for now its just the area where the 6x3 box go.

Threw in some weed fabric and white pea gravel we had 

lying around.  Honestly, I think it looks terrible.   Plus, it's 

apparent I underestimated my gravel needs by a factor of 

five or six.   Frustrating end to the day.

Early April seedlings

Last fall, as I looked at my two stunted eggplants struggling to grow, and broccoli flowering in the heat,  I came upon a book about "square foot gardening" which explained in detail how to grow vegetables in wood frames.   Looking at the results of the "experiment" with the broccoli and and eggplant was pretty discouraging, but even though I knew that I knew nothing, I felt that the fact
that I grew those plants in a container versus sowing in the ground was one thing I had gotten right.
On our half acre sloping lot, the advantages of containers and being able control soil and location
make it the best way to go for a novice like me.

After two weeks.  Note the real grow light.

The author, Mel Bartholomew, was a fantastic salesman for his gardening concepts.  Sometime around February, I began thinking about upgrades to this year's garden, and next I knew I was growing seeds indoors.  I wasn't sure what was the right time to start, but by the time I could pull the time and initial materials together in mid March, I thought it was already kind of behind schedule.    Again, its all an experiment and it doesn't cost anything to fail--right?   So I started the seed pallete around March 15, and did a bunch of wacky things no one with real knowledge of plants would do. 

To wit:

-Using those blue tungsten "plant" lights with no appreciable lumen
output.  Seedlings all came up extremely leggy.


-Mixing too many different kinds of seeds in the same palette.  Don't
plant beans in a herb tray.

-Starting early--all seedlings got too big and
had to be continually transplanted.