A Second Planting for 2010

This weekend we started by spreading the compost from the first two boxes...

among all four boxes.

Once that was done, we made our way to Atlantic Landscaping and picked up two loads of dirt: one Garden Blend and one Garden Blend with Mushroom Compost.  This place has all kinds of soil, compost, and gravel.

We paid for the soil inside a small office, then drove around back where a guy in this little contraption scooped up a load of dirt and....

dumped it into the back of our truck.

We brought it home....

and spread it in the boxes. One truck load of dirt finished up filling one box.

So we got two boxes filled and ready to go.

Tom had taken a Ph reading, using a Christmas gift no less, and determined the soil was somewhat acidic ... interestingly, moreso in the bin with mushroom compost (5.0 in that one, 6.0 in the one without). So he added wood ash we've been saving from our fall/winter fires, and a little bit of muriate of potash.  He got it all mixed in and we were just about ready to plant.

I used this handy, dandy tool that the Mahony's also gave Tom for Christmas to mark off the appropriate amount of space for each bed.  The tool is exactly 12".

We used masking tape to temporarily mark where each set of seeds would be planted.

Then we got busy getting Spring and Summer seeds in the beds.

 

A good drink of water to encourage the little guys to get moving.

The last things we added to the bed were markers to indicate what we planted, which is as follows:

Bed #4

marigolds, dill, eggplant, thyme, borlloti beans, basil, okra, rosemary, peppers, basil, tomatoes.

Bed #3

squash, parsley, limas, poppies, beets, nasturtium, chard, marigolds, lettuce, cilantro, cucumbers, tomatoes.

Then we topped the two boxes with a hi-tech anti-cat device, a.k.a. fencing, for our the never-ending procession of tomcats in our back yard.