Gardening Weekend

This weekend was full of hard work and planting. Some of our plans changed. We were originally going to plant along our South boundary where we planned on installing a fence in the future, but our neighbor had planted a line of Crape Myrtles. In 5-10 years the fence line would probably be too shady for a vegetable garden. We decided to relocate to the area in front of the pines in the back yard, the area that still gets some of the best sun. The garden is aligned North-South which helps reduce shadows of the plants on each other.

Saturday morning we went to Lowe’s in Garner and ordered a delivery of bricks and landscape timbers. That afternoon, Joe fired up our Craig’s List tiller and loosened up the ground while I worked on the back deck containers with Scooby.
Sunday, Joe built the 4′ x 4′ garden boxes, and we then moved them to the back yard. How we moved them was interesting. My wrist is still very messed up, so I stood in the middle of the box with the wheel barrow carrying the front of the box, while Joe carried the back of the box. We looked and felt very clumsy, but it worked! The back yard has a gentle slope on it, so it took extra digging to lay the boxes level but with a step to them. We also chose to dig out several inches and lay weed-stop cloth and still provide at least 12″ rooting depth from the top of the box to the cloth. Next weekend we will add more soil, compost, and brick a pathway around the boxes.
While Joe did the hard stuff, I set up bamboo poles in the East garden for pole beans. Pole beans, Broccoli, Peas, and Yellow Onions have been planted. I have to dig up about 12 onions that I planted between the beans. Onions interrupt the growth of beans and peas, which I forgot as I got carried away while I was planting.I planted some Broccoli I picked up at Lowe’s last week and am excited to report that the Broccoli I started from seed indoors is already sprouting and has been moved to the deck.