Sir, Your Salad Will be Ready in Two Weeks

The beauty of going away on an extended vacation: voilà!

Planting and Departing

Well, the beds survived last night's storm and Ed Wilson's exaggerations. Now, they're subject primarily to freak chance amid the vicissitudes of  our new globally warmed weather.

Saturday, I called in our pool of itinerant Damon labor to help with the planting.

When I get back in two weeks from my bike trip down the Oregon coast, I expect to be eating at least a decent mixed green salad from my front yard.

Now, I have to finish packing my panniers and then head up to St. Paul to catch the 10 pm train to Portland.

Food for Thought: Grass for Naught

Beds filled; pathways mulched. Eventually, I'll replace the mulch with medium-size river rock, then maybe rip out the sidewalk. I love ripping things out.

Once completed, we'll have two adjacent homes on our block with no turf grass (that's my neighbor Nancy's beautiful garden in the background). 

You've Made Your Bed, Now Fill It!

Here's what goes in each of the six raised beds, 48 cubic feet in all. This doesn't mean I won't be growing plenty of things outside the boxes in good old Mother Earth. But certain things do better in a more controlled medium.

Let the mixing begin.

After the preliminary mixing...

...the mixture is rolled over on itself several times to fully aggregate.

After wheel burrowing most of the mixture into the box, the remainder is dumped off the tarp.

Then, a final smoothing out.

One done and five more to go. But I'm tired and want a beer now.

Five hours later, voila!

Kill the Lawn (Part 3)

Sunday, after the rains of last week subsided and we had a couple of dry days, I was finally able to build three more boxes and get them properly installed. The ground was workable, but it was still a struggle getting them level. 

Now I'm ready to mix the soil and fill them: 48 cubic feet per box of vermiculite, coir, and compost.

Yesterday, I went to Des Moines Garden and Feed, on the East Side, and made a fair investment in vermiculite and various kinds of compost. I couldn't find coir, unfortunately, so I'll have to use Canadian peat.

On an unrelated side note: the cherry trees are in blossom.