Not so Lush, but Promising

I really wanted the vege garden to be lush for its first blog appearance, but it ain't. We planted the first seeds nearly a month ago. They all germinated quickly, but since they've been above ground they've had to deal with random blasts of hot and cold temperatures, heavy rain and strong winds. So it's still looking a bit stunted out there. But full of promise. A vege garden is nothing if not full promises for piles of salad greens, armfuls of fresh herbs, bowls of buttery corn, sweet new potato salad, steamed green and yellow beans. It's all coming. 

Five weeks ago this vege garden only existed in our minds and on graph paper in the garden notebook. But like all clear visions backed by a bit of determination and planning, it became real. The wonderful people from Down to Earth Landscaping got on the job, and turned our dream into reality in no time at all. (We had considered building the raised beds ourselves, but after we saw what was involved, we had to laugh in our own faces!)

First, you need something bigger than a shovel to move all that earth around and create a flattish space for the garden beds.

Then there's the not-so-small matter of hauling the lumber in from the street.

Getting the beds built, and built in the right spot, required skill, patience, and the use of surveying equipment and chain saws. 

These guys obviously knew what they were doing because all of a sudden we had a beautiful vege garden where there used to be a big mound of clay.

The beds are laid out in two pods of four beds with a decent sized space in the middle of each pod for sitting or planting a scarecrow, or something gardeny we haven't thought up yet. There's one extra bed out the side just because we had space for it. It feels generous and spacious out there. 

Someone asked us "Why raised beds? Why not just plant into the ground?" I just love the look of a garden with raised beds and paths. There are some benefits though. With raised beds you can expect to have good drainage, possibly fewer weeds, your soil might be a bit warmer earlier in the season, the beds are protected from foot traffic, and you can sit on the edge of them to harvest. You don't need to dig them, either, as long as you keep up a supply of compost -- I don't know if this is Official, but in my previous raised beds, I never dug. I just dumped a bag of ZooDoo on top of them every year and they were sweet. I intend to do the same here, but with our own compost. 

Here's what's growing, promising today:

Carrot babies

Salad Onion Ave

New Zealand spinach. Why is it growing such tiny leaves? I can't work this out.

Greener beaners. And yellow ones too. Pole beans and bush beans. Beans for the planet.

The tomatoes have been looking utterly forlorn, but this is looking promising. 

I've been drawing up plans for tunnel houses to go over the raised beds. It's just been too cold for most of the veges to thrive, so next year we'll give them some protection from the elements.

And next year we'll raise the seeds in the greenhouse, which you can see in the background of that last picture. It's still a bit of a constuction site inside, but I am writing from in there today, on my picnic table, looking up at the garden. Such a great spot to sit and look at all the promise outside.