Garden 2010 Update

We've got our raised bed garden ready to go for the year. We finished adding some soil along with a humus and cow manure mixture to our beds that we had already added some of the compost we've been working on.
We've got 9 beds ready to go, well, 7 really since we've already got strawberries and peas planted in 2 of the beds.
Sparky put a gazing ball and wind chimes in the strawberry bed to scare off birds. The plants already have a bunch of flowers on them and they'll be producing fruit in a few weeks. We've found strawberries are super easy to cultivate because they are one of those plants you leave in the ground year 'round.

Here's Sparky's peas:
More and more of those little suckers are sprouting every day and if we get a bumper crop we'll freeze them in little plastic bags.

In the other garden, which used to be a rose garden, we've got onions,
daikon radishes,
bibb lettuce, spinach, and possibly carrots coming up. I say 'possibly carrots' because the packet of seeds I planted haven't sprouted much yet. But I planted them early enough that if they don't come up I can plant more seeds and hopefully those will sprout and grow.

In the former rose garden we'll also be planting a couple different varieties of potatoes and some sweet potatoes as well. The soil is deep and rich, perfect for root based vegetables. I may throw in some shallots and garlic as well.

In the other beds we'll plant peppers, a couple varieties of squash, beans, watermelon, egg plant, and other stuff as well. We're going to plant tomatoes out front and on the side of the house. We'll put them in cages so they grow nice and tidy, and hopefully will produce enough fruit for us to have tomatoes all summer with some left over to can.

I removed some trees that were shading parts of our gardens and our fig tree, which Sparky had already pruned, and we can see both jobs paying benefits now. The gardens are getting more sun and the fig tree looks healthy and has more leaves and sprouts on it than it did last year at this time. Hopefully I won't fuck up preserving the figs this year like I did last year and we'll have enough to share with friends both far and near.

Garden 2010 is a go!