5.03.2010

Welcome to My Garden



It is the Grand Unveiling of this state-of-the-art vegetable garden. It's been my dream for so long, I have to pinch myself every once in awhile to believe that it's real. Brad, and especially Cameron, worked endlessly to make it just right.

The fence is rock solid, concreted into the ground with heavy-duty 4x4 posts. Two gates.1/2 inch mesh (almost) all the way round. The wire mesh goes 8 inches below ground to keep the rabbits out. After all, we did this whole thing so the rabbits wouldn't have to die if I caught them eating my veggies.

Some of the raised boxes were in last year and we built a few more this spring. Now we have ten. The soil is an even mixture of compost, peat moss, and vermiculite. They have a complete automatic watering system. In the last week we have filling them with strawberries, asparagus, potatoes, tomatoes, chard, lettuce, carrots, beets, and more.



Around the inside edge I planted peas to climb up the mesh--shelling peas, snap peas, snow peas, sweet peas, and pea shoots. Can you guess my favorite vegetable?  Inside that, I planted a line of edible flowers, but I ran out of flowers so I added lots of herb seeds like oregano, basil, and thyme to blend in with the flowers.

As you can see from the first photo, we still have snow around here. Spring weather in Reno is completely unpredictable 85 degrees one day, 34 degrees the next day. So we have hoops with insulated blankets for nighttime (and some times daytime) coverage. The green Wall O' Water tepees are a new addition. Supposedly, you can put tomatoes out two months before your last frost date. With such a short growing season, that is a real boon for us. The water absorbs the heat of the day and radiants out to the plant at night.


The fence doesn't quite make it all the way around the garden yet; that's because we are going to build a greenhouse at the north end. For now I have two big wicker chairs there, so I can gaze at the plants. I have big dreams for that trellis on the walkway too. I haven't decided on clematis, roses, honeysuckle, or something else yet, but it's going to be gorgeous some day....

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mom~ It looks great! It's nice that you guys can plant and grow your own veggies being in the desert and all. The arch thing looks nice too, and I wasn't expecting the veggie garden to look so.. so.. professional, LOL. I can't wait to see it!

Amy

SierraSnowSoaps said...

I think the gate is stunning and when you decide the flowers and get them planted (I do love clematis when it is in full bloom) it is going to be the bees knees!
Your dh and dg (dear gardener constructer) did a fantastic job. I can see the rabbits now, all lined up along the fence just drooling over all the succulant veggies. I hope I spelled everything right :)
Michelle in NV