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| The one that survived the cull, a Sweet 100 plant growing above the ones that didn't make it. |
The tomato plants continue to grow. The Roma tomatoes were the last to sprout, doing so just a few days ago. Hopefully they'll catch up with the others.
A couple weekends ago I picked up some strawberry plants from my Dad. They were runners from his own plants. I didn't have a good spot for them prepared, so I went out and bought some edging material, then extended one of the beds near our patio in order to make space for the new plants. Nearby, an Arborvitae shrub had been adversely affected by the last heavy snow a few months ago. The shrub was probably around nine or ten feet tall, and the heavy wet snow weighed it down, permanently bending it over so that it leaned out over the steps leading from our yard to our patio. Trying to prop it up wasn't an option, so the father-in-law and I cut and dug it out. A replacement Arborvitae was purchased and planted in the location of the old plant, as we felt we would miss the privacy it offered for our patio. I probably planted the strawberry plants too close together, but I have no idea how many will survive, so things may work out in the end. We are looking forward to fresh strawberries later this year. With recent rains, the plants are perking up and appear to be happy in their new home.
Last fall while at one of the big box home improvement stores, we noticed some 4'x4' cedar raised bed garden kits on sale. I had wanted to do a raised bed garden, but hadn't figured out exactly how I was going to do it yet. Other home improvement stuff had been the priority, and I hadn't put a lot of thought into it yet. Looking at the kits, they seemed like a simple enough start for the price, so we went ahead and bought two of them. The kits were made in the USA out of USA materials, and come from a company not too far away in Cleveland. All the major parts are dovetailed, so the only tools needed for assembly are a rubber mallet and a screwdriver (The caps on the corners are screwed in place). The kits spent the winter in our garage behind the wife's bicycle. With the weather starting to warm up, I went outside last weekend and set them up in a mostly sunny spot in the back yard.
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| Yes, I can fit my lawnmower through there. . . |
They went together very easy, and the only major problem I had with them was that the cuts on some of the boards that make up the sides weren't very straight. I had to test fit boards to mate a straight side with another straight side so I wouldn't end up with a gap between them. When I started setting them up, I wasn't completely sure how I was going to do it. The original plan was to scrape up the sod where the beds would go then fill the boxes in with bagged garden soil. This was somewhat tedious though, and I didn't have a good spot for all the sod to be dumped. What I ultimately ended up doing was scraping up the sod, flipping it upside down, and then placing the boxes around it. The instructions that came with the kits said that they would each require eight cubic feet of soil to fill them, but with the existing sod, I got that down to six cubic feet per box. I laid down newspaper between the flipped sod and new garden soil. Time will tell if I end up with grass growing up through the new soil. I'm looking forward to getting some things planted out there, but I need to figure out a way to fence off the new beds. More on that later. . . .
A couple weekends ago I picked up some strawberry plants from my Dad. They were runners from his own plants. I didn't have a good spot for them prepared, so I went out and bought some edging material, then extended one of the beds near our patio in order to make space for the new plants. Nearby, an Arborvitae shrub had been adversely affected by the last heavy snow a few months ago. The shrub was probably around nine or ten feet tall, and the heavy wet snow weighed it down, permanently bending it over so that it leaned out over the steps leading from our yard to our patio. Trying to prop it up wasn't an option, so the father-in-law and I cut and dug it out. A replacement Arborvitae was purchased and planted in the location of the old plant, as we felt we would miss the privacy it offered for our patio. I probably planted the strawberry plants too close together, but I have no idea how many will survive, so things may work out in the end. We are looking forward to fresh strawberries later this year. With recent rains, the plants are perking up and appear to be happy in their new home.
Last fall while at one of the big box home improvement stores, we noticed some 4'x4' cedar raised bed garden kits on sale. I had wanted to do a raised bed garden, but hadn't figured out exactly how I was going to do it yet. Other home improvement stuff had been the priority, and I hadn't put a lot of thought into it yet. Looking at the kits, they seemed like a simple enough start for the price, so we went ahead and bought two of them. The kits were made in the USA out of USA materials, and come from a company not too far away in Cleveland. All the major parts are dovetailed, so the only tools needed for assembly are a rubber mallet and a screwdriver (The caps on the corners are screwed in place). The kits spent the winter in our garage behind the wife's bicycle. With the weather starting to warm up, I went outside last weekend and set them up in a mostly sunny spot in the back yard.
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