Gardening season begins!

There is new mulch in the boxes and new saw dust-wood shavings around the boxes.

                                                Well gardening season is here!  Yea!

                           I enjoy gardening and mowing the lawn, it is a way for me to relax.

For those of you who may not know or remember, I have designed my garden beds to be easier on me when I am older.  IF we are still in this home!  This way I can add boards to make the boxes taller so I will not have to bend as far when working in them.  Also the 'rows' are wider, so they would eventually- if needed- accommodate a wheelchair or walker! (we would need to add cement in the rows so they are smooth for this) Not that I am planning on being in a wheelchair, but you never know where life will take us!

these are the boxes out in the yard, in the beginning when there was only 3 and lots of grass growing around them!

we added more boxes each year, as well as organic mulch

this is after we added organic mulch on top of new topsoil 

this is how the sawdust comes packaged.  We spend $3.75 for one,  plus tax, and it covers about a 2-1/2 foot wide by about 8-12 feet long space -and about 3-4 inches deep.  If you're putting down new ground cover and mulch like this for the first time, I would plan to use more than the above ratio to help kill the weeds that first year.  The first time on my gardens, I put the mulch on double  thickness.  It was worth the extra cost, and worth it to avoid the weeds and grass weeds sneaking into the garden!

There are now 6 boxes in this area, (took a few years to get to this point) and you can see the saw dust between the boxes.  We now have saw dust around the outer edge of the boxes too, and a fence up to keep the deer and rabbits and other  animals out! These photos above were taken a couple of years ago.

I have now 6 boxes out in the yard, a garden area there.  As you can see above on the photos.  Below is a photo taken this year, after 2-3 years the saw dust breaks down enough to use as mulch.  So one of the things I am working on this spring is putting the old saw dust that is now soil- that is currently in between the boxes on the path we walk on, putting all of that into the boxes and redoing the saw dust with new sawdust.  Scott is bringing me compost from the barn yard animals, to also place in the boxes.   The combo of organic new soil and organic barn yard mulch makes for a great rich soil for the new plants! 

one of the 6 boxes this spring before we weeded it and removed the soil between the boxes

you can see here, I have removed the soil between the boxes you can also see the fence up around the garden too.  Someday we will replace the posts which are metal, with nice wooden ones and make it a bit fancier!  For now, it serves the purpose!

and new mulch is down!

 I have 5 boxes along the driveway, that have pea gravel in the rows between the boxes.  They are 4 foot wide and 8 foot long.  I have weeded 2 and a half of those, so I have some more work to do there.  I also have planted some veggies in 2 of those, one box has the cilantro coming up (it is organic and heirloom so comes up on its own each year-and replaces itself all summer long) and one box has garlic and strawberries which are both doing well.  (need more strawberry plants though!)  I plan to fill at least 2 or maybe three of these boxes with strawberries, and keep the chives that are growing (see the taller plants in the box with purple flowers) and continue to plant lavender also (I have about 3 lavender plants here).

Then behind the house I have 4 boxes which are also 4 foot wide, and 8 feet long.  I have a spot for green beans, that grow on vines, (see photo below) that will grow up on the fence that is arched over to the wooden fence, and also will plant many bush beans here.  I put the peppers here, some of them, as well as some onions, radishes, and some beets.  I plant root veggies with veggies that are producing above ground to save space.  So there will be green beans that will be growing on the vine and up the fence you see in the photo, that box also has about 15 to 18 pepper plants and 4 more pepper plants from seed, about 30 sweet onions, and also radishes.  I got a lot planted in that box!

My volunteer tomatoes come up each year in these boxes too, cherry and grape ones.  (again, I am trying to switch over to all veggies being heirloom so I can save the seed --also organic.)  When I was growing up -we had to save seeds for the next year, we also had plants that had to be pollinated, so I know how to do that too.  Once the hybrids came out, they marketed them as to make our lives easier in the garden, many of us-our family included, jumped on that band wagon, because they said many of the plants were resistant to rot, bugs, etc...We had no idea how toxic all of this would be to our bodies.

tomato horn worm that was covered with wasp larva that was found in my garden another year.  The larva will hatch and the new worms will eat the tomato hornworm, but not its vital organs until last.  so the worm does not even know the danger it is in until its too late.  Nature (GODs design) at work!

Now I do not mind going out and removing bugs from the garden, there are also several things you can do to help avoid bugs on your plants.  And GOD has a design (see above photo) for most pests to a garden.  The tomato hornworm is a moth in the larva stage, it has a purpose in life, but to a vegetable garden, it can destroy tomatoes fast!

Gardening is a little bit of work, but it is a healthy thing to do and it is also relaxing so I do not mind.  We always keep a couple of chairs in each garden area, so scott can come and sit and talk with me while I work, or we can just sit there together -he enjoying a cup of coffee and me a cup of tea, and talk.  Its peaceful! (photo below taken a few years ago)

the chair also works well to hold the sprinkler! that keeps the chair clean too!