Friday, June 8, 2007

Raised Vegetable Garden

While I didn’t want a storm yesterday, I was hoping that we would get some more rain. Nope, no such luck for my yard- not even a drop of rain. So, at 6:00 a.m. this morning I was out for an hour watering all the pots and containers. One thing to keep in mind is that even with rain, many times the water does not actually end up in the container. The rain falls, hits the leaves, runs down the leaf and lands on the ground, missing the soil in the container all together.

This weekend, I will start working on a raised vegetable garden in my side yard. The plans are roughed out - very rough may I add and the cedar lumber is bought. It will be 12’ long and 48” wide. I’ve had several places in my yard to grow vegetables over the years, but each one has ended up in the shade, as other things I have planted have grown larger. It’s been a couple of years since I’ve had a place of my own to grow some vegetables. Previously, my neighbors were gone all summer at their cabin and I staked out some unused space in their yard for tomatoes and peppers. They sold their house and now I need to come up with space in my own yard.

In addition it is time to replant the 5 containers on my front steps. They have had pansies in them since early April and are starting to look a bit tired. Pansies don’t like heat and even though the front of my house faces east it gets very hot, I’ll dig them out and replant them in the back of the yard in the shade. Some years they do well back there and other years they don’t. I figure that I’ve gotten good use out of the pansies and if they do well in the back yard, it is just a bonus.

Make your weekend a good one.