Garden Time!

There is just something so wonderful and amazing about walking into your backyard to collect dinner. Granted we can't completely make a meal with what we've got planted currently but as time goes by we have to supplement less and less. This year we decided to improve our design by building raised beds and adding a little order to the chaotic jungle that last years garden became. After assessing the ground space we had, what we wanted to grow and cost, we settled on making 12.5 of the 4' x 8' raised beds. We began with treated garden timbers (because they were only $1.50 each) and rebar. Stacked the timbers two high, cut the end pieces in half, drilled holds for the rebar and then simply hammered them into place. This turned out to be a pretty wobbly design so we switched tactics after the second bed. We started lincoln-log staggering the edges so they overlapped then nailed them in place with 9-inch barrier nails. Considerably more time in setting up the beds but sooo worth it in the end. Then simply fill with compost, top soil, manure, bagged soil (ours took six bags of whatnot) or whatever you have laying around. Here is the finished product currently holding my herb garden:



Back to the matter at hand which was dinner. Currently we only have winter crops planted long enough to bear rewards and they have been doing just that! Almost a month ago we planted four varieties of lettuce and some spinach. We like to shop the local nurseries and there are two small ones near our house luckily enough. We were able to get a 4" x 4" tray full of ~15-20 one inch tall seedlings for $2.50. We bought six of those, planted them and it looks something like this 3 weeks later:



We have already begun making incredibly yummy salads from this bed for our dinners. Of course I had to take a picture of that too since we are so proud that the spinach actually lived this year! Apparently our soil is just too full of clay to encourage proper spinach growth. Hooray for the raised beds!!