Let the farming begin!

For several years Nicole and I have been talking about expanding our farming operation, so for Mother's Day this year Nicole got her first set of raised garden beds. We modeled them off of Ralph and Janet's beds that have provided us with many yummy treats in the past.

Stage 1 - Assembly


Ralph and I spent last Sunday constructing the boxes. The raw materials (and all good projects start with a 30 pack of beer... no we did not drink all of them).

Ralph, John and our team of helpers.

Here's Athena inspecting the placement of the garden boxes. We played around with several locations, but this is the one that got the most sun and is protected from the wind.

Athena and I ended up taking 3 trips to the local garden center/nursery in town. Our 1st trip was for a load of oak mulch that we used to make the bottom layer. Underneath the mulch we put some old news paper to help kill the grass. We then got 2 loads of gardening soil (1 yard total) and some peat moss to fill in the boxes.

Once the boxes were prepped we moved on to:

Stage 2 - Planting

While Nicole put the finishing touches on the trestle, Alton made sure the remaining boxes were plowed, tilled and ready to go.

In the first box Nicole and Athena planted beans and sugar snap peas. In the second box they planted carrots and radishes.

The final step was a good healthy dose of water and then we had 2 fully planted garden boxes. We are waiting a couple more weeks to plant some of the more temperature sensitive produce, but stay tuned for more updates.

The happy farming family!