A Garden is Born!

After years of being limited to container gardens due to the need for portability and lack of space, I will have my first official garden this year!


Husbeast helped me build two 4 x 4 beds, each 12 inches high. One is currently filled with dirt and settling in, and the second is ready to be filled. This week, I will be moving one or two wheelbarrow-fuls of dirt at a time around to the backyard and hope to be ready to plant both beds by next weekend.

Even though I am glad to have expanded out to the "official garden," I'm still planting in containers. This weekend, I rearranged my herb planters, adding mint and a tiny creeping thyme. I also planted a few new containers, one with Salmon Geranium, Chartreuse Sweet Potato vine, Sweet Alyssum for next to the front door and the first of several big containers to hold the plants that wouldn't fit in the garden proper. One container has Bright Lights Swiss Chard and Black Velvet Nasturtiums, the second has one Homestead tomato plant and some marigold seeds I saved from last year.

I'm glad I started my seeds early, it's made up for some of the time that I've been delayed in building and filling the big beds.

For (my) future reference, here's the (probably too ambitious) list of plants I thought I'd grow this year:

Tomatoes

• Brandywine
• Stupice
• Mexico Midget
• Jellybean Grape
• Snow White Cherry
• White Beauty
• Homestead

Zucchini – Black Beauty*
Cantaloupe – Charentais*

Pepper

• Buran Sweet Red
• Ancho Gigantea*

Carrot

• Sweet Nantes*
• Burpee Little Finger*

Radish

• French Breakfast*
• Watermelon*

Beets

• Bull's Blood*
• Burpee Golden*

Herbs

• Nasturtium - Black Velvet* & Milkmaid
• Chives*
• Marigolds* (mutts from saved seeds, they will be a surprise!)
• Italian Parsley*
• Cilantro
• Basil
• Mint
• Thyme - Doonan Valley, Creeping Mother, Silver Lemon
• Oregano - Golden

Greens

• Arugula* - Sylvetta & Roquette
• Mixed Lettuces* - Amish Deer Tongue, Australian Yellowleaf, Bronze Arrowhead, Forellenschuss, Lollo Rossa, Pablo, Red Velvet, & Reine des Glaces
• Swiss Chard - Rhubarb* & Bright Lights
• Kale - Lacinato*

(* from seed)

I'm still working out where everything would go, but my seedlings are getting leggy, so they'll need to get a permanent home very soon or else!