The farm is constructed!

Although we didn't have a tractor this weekend (very, very sad), we still managed to get quite a bit of farm construction done. On Saturday morning, we went to the Portland farmer's market to check out seedlings. We were supposed to go to another plant sale after the farmer's market, but I bought all the seedlings that I needed at the farmer's market, and figured that I would only cause myself spacing issues if I went to the plant sale. At the farmer's market, I bought broccoli, cauliflower, red and green cabbage, leek, several kinds of onion, brussels sprouts, and thai basil seedlings. With the exception of the thai basil, these are all supposed to be cooler weather plants that should hopefully survive outside now, so I planned to transplant them over the weekend. Sadly, one of the thai basil plants is already a goner. We noticed yesterday afternoon that it was quite droopy, and this morning I saw that it had succumbed to damping off. This happens to seedlings sometimes, quite quickly, and kills them. As you can see in the picture, it's not pretty. At least it wasn't a seedling that I grew, so I don't feel responsible, although I am the one who selected it at the market...

We also went to the tractor supply store to buy supplies for the fence. We have lots of wildlife near our house, including deer, so a fence is not optional for the garden. We went with a five foot fence, but have been warned that this may not be high enough to discourage the deer. We'll have to see. Mike worked on putting up the fence (I did provide key assistance in keeping the corner posts straight, and wrestling with the wire fencing, but he did most of the actual hard work). I transplanted most of my seedlings, also adding a few that we picked up at Skillins on the way home, because I really do go there every weekend. On Saturday, I managed to get the strawberries, brussels sprouts, onions, and cabbage planted. We were rained out by 5:00, so I couldn't finish the rest of the seedlings. I wasn't too disapointed though, as I've learned over the last few weeks that 1) I'm really, really not very good at shoveling and 2) gardening involves a lot of shoveling. Because we ran out of compost last week, I had to manually get the manure into the remaining beds. At one point, I had to admit to Mike that I wished we had a tractor. Either that, or I need some serious shoveling lessons and possibly steroids to bulk up faster.

Above from top: Entire garden post-fencing, cauliflower/broccoli bed, start of the herb garden, and strawberry/rhubarb bed

Today, Mike finished the fence, and I put in the rest of the seedlings and was able to plant all of the seeds that I had scheduled to plant this weekend. I had planned out where I wanted to plant everything, and I almost managed to follow my plan - I mixed up my first bed, but got on track after that. I used hot pink string to make rows to follow when planting the seeds, which I'm hoping will help me a bit when I start weeding the beds, so that I don't inadvertantly pull up my plants instead of the weeds. I'm glad that we went with the raised beds, because even though it's rained for what feels like the last two months, the soil in the beds was moist but not soaked, unlike the rest of the yard which has turned into a huge mud pit.

Above from top: cabbage bed, brussels sprouts with arugula seeds, onions/scallions, and leeks/broccoli & cauliflower (I had extra seedlings)

Below - Seedlings taking over the office! The top photo is mostly tomatoes blocking everything else. In the bottom you can see the marigolds, zinnias, peppers, and tomatoes.


Hopefully in a few weeks, we'll start having baby lettuce. It's very exciting to look out onto the garden and see the seedlings and know that I planted seeds - now I hope that it grows! Next weekend I'll plant more of the warmer weather seeds as long as it looks like we won't have another cold spell, and then I'll transplant the tomatoes and peppers and plant my squash in June. We still have to prepare the beds for the squash, and decide exactly where they're going to go, but all of the other garden prep is done. Well, I also have to mulch the walkways in the garden, but it's so gross and muddy in there that I need to wait for it to dry out a bit.