Getting Growing

Posted by Dawn

It's been a busy month in the garden, Northern New England has warmed up nicely, it's not too muddy not too wet.

I...am enjoying my new camera! Obviously.

Anyway, last I posted we were breaking new ground in the veggie bed, that being done it is time for the fencing. My garden is surrounded on 3 sides by dense forest and I'm taking no chances with the critters, nothing any more disparaging than finding all your hard work destroyed in one night by a hungry animal.

We did have a lot to debate though, my local farm/tractor supply shop sold three kinds of fencing, rabbit proof with a pricey cost, four foot high fence with 3 inch squares or a combo of both, the rabbit proof (1 1/2 squares) at the bottom of the 3 incher on top. Problem, the combo is only 3 feet in height, essentially not deer proof. So with the help of a few thinned out maple trees, some snow fencing and roof shingles, we went to work creating a barrier while providing a heavy wall that small critters would have to spend a great deal of time digging under. I love the look of it.

After the installing of the raised bed over the large rock,

and a rustic "it's not very pretty" cucumber trellis,

we made some tee-pees for the vining veggies, we used the tops of the maple trees and birch that were bent over from this winter storms. They wouldn't recover or survive.

The tomatoes are in the background, happy to have those planted, although I had to cover them once to protect from the frost.

Here is my daughter putting down newspaper between the bean rows, I'm a big believer of newspaper and use it whenever I can. I'm not a good one for weeding all summer. See the tires behind her? Those are for potato plantings, we have never done this kind of growing. Research tells me you can get 60lbs of potatoes per tire. Has anyone done this?

Less explaining daughter dear, and more action!

And here she is again wetting everything down this weekend, I'm so glad she enjoys gardening.Last Friday rolled in the last of the plantings for a northern veggie bed, some things can be staggered though, we are planting beans every two weeks. That sounds better to me in the long run, picking them at once is a lot of bean eating!

My husband constructed this cute little gate, I teased him about not having the skill to age it for me! Too funny! Anyhow we saw Lola's pot plantings with rebar and decided to see if we could do it with some of the buckets. It turned out pretty good, we had a few 6 foot fence posts and used them instead of the rebar. These buckets have herbs planted within them, catnip being on top. Ha!

Another long shot.

Time for the potatoes to be planted, I read NOT to use soil with manure in it as it causes scabbing on the potatoes. Well, that did away with any garden soil we have available....we could buy it at a huge price, (tire planting takes a lot of dirt!) or we could make it.

We made it, we shredded piles of composted leaves. We opted to do this because the piles had many roots growing within it. That was fun, peat moss flying everywhere.

We screened it....it really went quickly.

My daughter could not keep her hands out of it. It felt like water. I never thought I'd be making 'dirt', it worked well though, "I want more!"On with planting of the onions,

But wait, what's that....peas getting growing! Here,And there,it was a good feeling after 2 months of constant planning and work. Basket of Gold, or Mountain Alyssum.

In The Garden....