Garden Beds

This is where our playhouse used to be.  Last summer I sold the playhouse.

And the area was left to look like this for the rest of the summer...

This spring we got started with the garden area...

 Danny helped us build the beds.  He's the one that did the work next door last summer.

 Cole was a big help, moving all those rocks with his Tonka.

 Here are my garden boxes.

 Garden planted!!

 Making progress!!

 Tomatoes are growing.  I planted about 72 heirloom tomatoes in the basement under a grow light back in February.  Most of them grew--some better than others.  I was worried that they weren't going to grow well enough to get me all of the harvest that I wanted.  So, I bought 3 tomato plants from Costco.  I also bought about 12 heirloom tomatoes from Diamond's in Springville.  My tomatoes that I grew from seed are doing fairly well, they have almost caught up with the plants that I bought.  Altogether I have about 30 tomato plants growing.

Here is the bed with the peppers.  There are 39 pepper plants.  Some hot.  Some really hot.  And some sweet.  Rick thinks that next year I should plant a few more peppers!!  

I just wanted to make sure I had enough peppers to go with all of my tomatoes!

My problems is that I never end up with equal amounts of peppers & tomatoes.  

I usually end up short on one or the other.  Not this year!!

Also growing in raised beds:  radishes, turnips, beets, carrots, peas, lettuce, and cilantro.

And in the ground:  zucchini, cucumbers, watermelon, cantaloup, and pumpkins.

Strawberry Towers

Back in February I ordered 50 strawberry plants.  They cost $12.

We were in the process of rearranging our yard a bit, so we decided to locate the Strawberries in an entirely different location than we've had them in the past.  Rick found some plans for strawberry towers, so we decided to take on a little project.

It turned out to be a bigger project than we had anticipated. (don't they all??)

It turned out that it is harder than you'd think to cut sharp angles on 2x6's.  who knew?

so, we had to borrow a saw from the professionals.  

Once we did that...smooth sailing...kind of.

But, we did conclude that as long as you are building one strawberry tower...you might as well build two.  or more.

This was the first time in my life that I could see a practical approach to learning geometry.

All those angles.  So much math.

Here are the strawberry towers completed, in the yard, filled with compost/soil, and strawberries planted.  (on or about April 7, 2013)

Two months later on June 17, 2013

Each planter has a different variety of strawberries.  I didn't have enough plants to fill the entire planter, so I planted yellow pansies on the side that faces north.  I thought the yellow would show up nicely and would be a pretty contrast with the red berries once they started to grow.

Little, baby strawberries are starting to show up.

They're so tasty.

This is the view of the north side.  If, for some reason the strawberries don't workout, I think these towers will look great with flowers in them.  Or maybe I can talk Rick into building a few more towers.  Probably not.