Garden therapy - A backyard garden update (April)

It's been a busy month in garden therapy. Remember all that cedar we received as a gift last December? Well, now we have compost to match it (Thanks again to my Dad and a borrowed trailer)! Dave spent quite a few evenings and weekends putting all the beds together (an additional 4' x 10' shallow beds and three 4' x 10' deep beds), and I followed behind him and hoed up the grass, put down the weed cloth, and filled the beds in with a garden mix of soil and compost. At this point, every muscle aches in both our bodies but at least we're done with the expansion (1200% larger than our growing area last Oct - if you enlarge the photo, that's the original 4x4 bed way in the back corner).

To be honest, I haven't even begun to figure out what I'll be planting in all these boxes other than I know one of the deep beds will consist entirely of sweet potatoes. Mmmm! We also bought lettuce, chard, and collard green seeds for the two new shallow beds so before long, we'll have greens coming out of our ears, but what a wonderful problem to have! 

For now, though, let's concentrate on the two older (aka previously established) beds. In the smaller of the 2 beds (4 x 4), I've finished harvesting those beautiful cabbage. I'm sad to see them go, but in their place are cucumber and spaghetti squash (both growing well). I also have several squares of onions that just need to be picked, lambs quarter and kale that will continue to grow into the spring and summer months, sage (transplants from indoors), and 4 squares of green beans just starting to break the surface. I'll transplant some basil in the remaining squares (currently inhabited by onions) as soon as it warms up a bit more and I get around to harvesting the rest of the onions.

In the second bed (4 x 8) are all those juicy tomatoes. One seems to have fallen victim to our latest frost but the other 11 are looking healthy and happy and are starting to bloom! The rest of the bed is full of more green beans (a total of 16 plants) and green peppers (a total of 16 plants). The green beans in this bed have all been growing healthy for weeks. The peppers were just planted last week so you can't quite see them yet. They should be gorgeous this time next month though!

Indoors, I have quite a few seedlings to be transplanted when they're ready. That's basil, more sage, and some green peppers in addition to the goodies in the Aerogarden. 

You know, this whole garden thing has SERIOUSLY exploded since we built that first 4x4 bed in October. Was that really only 6 months ago?

All I can say is that despite being completely exhausted with all the grunt work we've been doing, the garden looks fabulous and the possibilities for planting are endless. It might be a lot of hard work, but the idea of being able to support our little family (mostly anyway) out of our own backyard (with a little bartering of the excess) will hopefully become a reality just a few short months from now. This is certainly not the life I dreamed of when I was a kid. Isn't it good then, that life has a way of altering our plans. I wouldn't trade this life for anything in the world. There's nothing a little garden therapy can't solve. Farmer Heather signing out!