Raised Beds

So the land my house happens to sit on is mostly clay. Clay, like thick, non-draining, even hard to dig with a shovel clay. And the clay starts approximately one inch under the grass. So the answer is raised beds. I did some research on the type of dirt to put int the beds, since I have the chance to put in exactly what I want. I went with the city of Plano's "bulk soil blend", which is a 50/50 blend of compost and topsoil. It has a very nice dark color, with plenty of good sized decomposed mulch that should make it drain ok. I was also careful to add only a few inches of dirt and then till it in with the clay before I added the rest of the dirt on top. This will hopefully stop the good soil from draining all the water 8 inches down and then creating a wet basin to rot my roots. And the baby plants seem to be liking it!

So this is what the whole set up looks like.  It can get windy around here, and it mostly blows from the north, so the teepee trellises have grapes planted under them to hopefully grow an edible wind break. 

I have a patch of onions, and I also planted them all around the edges of the bed, just to use up the space. 

To go with the onions, I have spinach that has sprouted: 

 And the radishes are coming up great. I started thinning them, and my husband asked me to try transplanting them instead. So we'll see if the transplants survive. I love their heart shaped leaves.

I planted a mixed bed of mesclun mix and Braveheart ( a roman variety) together here. They are coming up well. All their little leaves are so different. 

 I planted carrots at the same time as everything else, but they took almost a week longer to come up. They look very tiny and fragile. I've tried to grow carrots before, but I've never had success. Hopefully they like the dirt I got them. These carrots are a kaleidoscope blend, so they should come up in all kinds of cool colors.

In one bed I also planted some herbs that I bought as plants. My helpful local rabbits ate my cilantro and the parsley down to the ground before I got the floating row covers over them. They are coming back now, and they don't seem to mind the row covers, so I see that as something that I'll keep doing. 

Next time, I'll show you my new Brown Turkey Fig! 

Baby plant chronicles

It's been about a month since my seedling sprouted, and they have definitely started taking on the character of their varieties. Check out the tiny spines starting to grow on my artichokes. You can tell they were born to be thistles. 

Here is my forest of tomato plants. I had unbelievable success in the sprouting rates, every single pot I started still has a happy 3-6 inch tomato plant growing in it. The salsa varietal was the last to sprout, and they are still the smallest, but they are growing strong. 

I did however learn an important lesson for next year - all the plants in one flat should be the same type. Here you see I've had to raise the light because the tomatoes had grown up into it and then were being bent over by it, but the peppers in the same flat are now much too far from the light. Yes, there's a baby artichoke back there in the corner, I had one pot that had two great looking plants so I transplanted this one. 

The other plants I started didn't all sprout like the tomatoes. Here are the eggplants with their first true leaves. Most of the peppers did ok, but they had closer to a 70% success rate so far. They are also still very small, I'm concerned that they will be the right size in a month when transplanting time comes around. I started adding a 1/4 strength fertilizer to their water last weekend, once everyone had true leaves. I'm going to be watering them with that every Sunday as a special please grow up and make me vegetables treat. 

Outside everything is growing gangbusters as well. I put in two hanging pots of strawberries. I've never grown strawberries because I've always heard they were more trouble than they were worth, but my local nursery had them on sale so I made an impulse purchase. We'll see if these little guys can change my mind. 

Also, like I said last post I did get all my raised beds up. It took all weekend and seriously strained my whole body, but they are up and starting to grow baby plants. I had intended to take pictures and show the whole process, but then I got outside, got dirty, got tired, got thirsty, started whining, and then I couldn't talk my husband into going into the house and getting the camera. I'll post just about them tomorrow, but here's a preview.