Michael worked super hard building a raised bed. We’d talked about it for awhile but were busy. We finally got it done and it looks great. Also, the surcharge on lumber is crazy now! I think I read an article that said lumber is up 300%.
Michael said he wanted to use Juniper wood (I think?) but couldn’t find it so it’s just cedar. He built it a little bit taller than the ones we had at our old house. I am hoping it’s a little better on our backs. 🙂
He was going to add a finishing piece on the top but when we looked at it with the top piece neither of us thought it was necessary so we skipped it. I stained the wood with some walnut colored stain I had leftover from a previous project.
Then I sealed it with clear sealant. After it dried we moved it to the place along the fence we wanted it. It weighed a TON. We were able to move it with the two of us but I don’t want to do that again. LOL The ground was a little uneven so we have to put a little filler dirt in and then rake it. Lots of measuring and checking and finally got it right.
Since it’s so deep we’ll need a lot of soil. I did some googling and some people put cardboard down then mulch and rocks and then dirt. Some people even put packing peanuts on the bottom?? Seems crazy to me.
I planted all tomatoes in the big bed. It took sooo much dirt. I used some of our compost, some regular nothing special dirt for the bottom, then a few layers of various compost, potting soil and vegetable soil. I also used this Worm Casting Soil. I’ve never used that before so we will see!
In another container I planted some carrot seeds and radish seeds. The radishes are already growing!
My zucchini plant is doing great:
In the old bed I planted some lettuce, basil, one early girl tomato (a few weeks ago), a few jalapeno plants, a banana pepper and serano pepper.
There is also a random plant that grew in my compost bin. I have NO idea what it is but I guess I will find out eventually. 🙂 The only thing I still need to plant are chives. I didn’t see them at the store I went to, so I need to look elsewhere. I use chives a lot in my homemade blue cheese salad dressing.
My parents gave me a pressure canner for my birthday last year and I haven’t been able to use it yet. I wanted it so I could can tomato sauce and salsa from my garden last year and my garden did NOT do well. I am not sure what happened. We had a ton of jalapenos but none of the tomatoes did well. Some of them split and stopped growing, some leaves were yellow, some just didn’t have any tomatoes at all, others had tomatoes that never really fully turned red. Part of me wonders if the wildfires/smoke etc had anything to do with that.
So this year my goal is to get lots of garden goodies. I want to make and can salsa, marinara sauce and then hopefully pickle some radishes for salads and stuff.
Happy growing!
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