Continued Already in Progress

So I pretty much quit updating the blogs last summer when things started getting a little hectic around here, but we did keep up the garden. The final harvests probably could have been better especially if we'd known what we were doing to begin with. This year the garden is pretty much all my doing, mom has had some health problems that make standing and bending for any amount of time difficult so it's all up to me now. Hopefully she'll be in better condition by the time the bugs really start to invade in mid summer (I just cannot deal with the spiky caterpillars just, no.)

Before we started this year I made a plan of what to keep and what to get rid of and what I was going to plant. Luckily Dad already had a plan to raise the boxes even higher than the just off the ground we had last year.
So now the tops of the boxes sit just about waist height for me and mom being under 5'4" as we are, so much easier on the lower back and upper legs just from the couple weeks I've been working in them.

Believe me when I say if you are going to do raised boxes, go higher earlier!! like before you ever put anything in them, these boxes must have weighed in at about 150-200 lbs full of soil like they were, not easy on the back at all to lift from the ground.

The beans and strawberries box got moved a little more west to get good sun across the whole box and the lettuce and herb box was moved to the other end of the patio to take better advantage of the early morning light.

We kept the lackluster strawberries that had wintered over, I'm hoping this year they'll truly produce, the early girl tomato was also saved since it was putting out a few tomatoes a month all winter. Also the beautiful bunch of parsley and the oregano that finally decided to show up have been saved.


So this years plan is for lettuce cilantro and chives added to the parsley and oregano box, a new cherry tomato and another mid size tomato called Celebrity, jalapeno and poblano replacing the bell pepper from last year (we have ziplocks full of frozen bell for this year) carrots and green onions which always do great.

Instead of trying the hanging deal again I have the yellow squash, zucchini and eggplant all in one box together and will start earlier on training the vines up. I also added another dozen strawberries to the dozen or so we had left from last year and replanted the kentucky wonder pole beans.

Hopefully more pictures to come!