SSG

2011 Garden Theme - Baby Garden

2011-01-03T10:47:00.000-08:00

After a year of bad garden juju in 2010, we are particularly excited to greet a new year at the South Sound Garden. Last year's weather led such garden disappointment we stopped posting altogether in disgust! But all the time not spent in a depressing garden gave us a little time to attend to other things:

We are tickled pink to be expecting a baby girl in late February. Since babies aren't candidates for solid food until they're about 6 months, and even then very simple veggies and grains, we're planning to plant baby-friendly produce and freeze whatever gets harvested before she can eat. The good news is many baby-friendly favorites are easy to grow (even in a crappy year!)

Baby-Friendly Veggies
Carrot
Parsnip
Peas
Pumpkin
Potato
Squash
Zucchini

Baby Friendly Fruits Already Growing in SSG
Apples
Berries
Cherries
Plums

We picked up this book from Williams Sonoma on cooking for baby and it has a lot of good tips on what/when/how.

Happy New Year!

Amanda

Keeping Dogs and Other Critters out of the Garden Beds

2010-05-13T10:51:00.000-07:00

One of our biggest helpers in the garden is our sweet dog Annie. She's always there to supervise (as well as a nearly blind 15 year old dog can...) and lend a helping paw. One challenging thing about a senior dog who can't hear or see very well is teaching them new ideas (what is that about old dogs and new tricks?), like please don't tramp through the onion bed. After she played Godzilla over Tokyo a few times and broke a few onions, we decided we better make a way to keep the peace (where's Mothra when you need her?)

Who me?

We wanted something that was not too distracting or expensive so we put our thinking caps on and came up with rebar corner posts (we bought 4', which gave us 2' underground and 2' above, you could adjust by the size of your dog. Around the corners, we stretched some bird netting that they sell at the hardware store. If your dog is bigger they also sell wildlife netting or even construction webbing. We've been mulching with grass to keep the soil wet, that's what the greenish tinge is under the onions.

So far this works pretty well, sound the all clear in Tokyo.

Enjoy!

Amanda

Blue MayDay

2010-05-06T15:52:00.000-07:00

It's May and the sun is shining, oh wait it's raining, oh hey the sun is out again!...We've been suffering the gardener's dilemma where every time we get dressed to work in the yard it rains. As soon as we go in it's sunny again! Oh well...

The yard is full of Blue Flowers! Well sometimes purple...But that doesn't go with the song.

From SSG

Purple Money Plant - Lunaria annua - the seeds will be around soon - let me know if you want some.

From SSG

Comfrey - A great composter, did you know? Apparently full of nitrogen!

From SSG

Vinca Minor, though it should be called Vinca Major in our garden. We grow it under a plam and it goes nuts.

From SSG

Bluebells (and cockle shells?)

From SSG

Even the Asparagus is tinged with purple. This was the first crop of the year - check out the giant! It was still tender and delicious.

I have a feeling June will be pink - ROSES!

Amanda

Where ARE those nutty South Sound Gardeners?

2010-04-27T22:17:00.000-07:00

A postcard from the gardeners

Tuesday, April 27th - Postmark Steilacoom Chain Gang

Dear Friends,

We've been up to our dirty old tennis shoes prepping beds, putting up a fence, and chasing the dog (aka DogZilla!) out of onions. The soil prep has developed a meditative sort of repetition (dig, sift, dig, sift, compost compost...notice me avoiding the word boredom...) But still, it is gratifying to be outside under the big blue sky (ok sometimes grey) and to catch the chickadees and robins eyeing us curiously, wondering what treats we're going to uncover (mmmmm centipede!). We comfort ourselves by discussing how the bed prep we're doing this year will yield dividends for years to come. Hoping to have more exciting things to report very soon.

Oh wait, the bare root raspberries we planted are definitely getting big and bushy and the bare root apple trees we planted are leafing out nicely. Plus, hey the asparagus came up, yum. And some days we were working in the garden and I'd go in covered in cherry blossoms.

Wish you were here! No really - we could use the help.

Amanda n Mike

Seedling Experiment - Round 2

2010-04-03T09:08:00.000-07:00

Considering our miserably wet week, I'm thankful to have my little garden of seedlings to play with on a soggy Saturday morning. After our first seedling experiment which pitted plastic trays against Corningware casseroles (spoiler alert, casserole won!), we switched tactics. Hubby was pretty curious about how those little magically expanding peat pellets would perform against starter mix. We had read in at least one pepper book that peppers don't dig peat (testing that next) so we tried it out some tomatoes.
The results were pretty drastic. Here's some seedlings that were started on March 14th. The front row is all Oregon Spring tomatoes. See the peat one on the left is huge! I had to repot the peat seedlings this morning. The same variety on the right is respectable and healthy, but half the size. Yogurt anyone?

Bob in a party hat, he watched on with cool detachment

Post repotting comparison

We have been hearing good things about Coir, which is a more sustainable medium than peat. If we can get our hands on some we'll run another test. A couple of interesting notes. About 1 out of every 5 seeds don't make it. Since we're hoping to have 2 of each of the varieties of tomatoes and peppers that we start and have 2 to give away, we start 5 of each variety.

Crossing fingers for dryer days,

Amanda

Sunny Day Garden Tour

2010-03-28T21:24:00.000-07:00

Today it POURED all day! But yesterday, oh yesterday, was another tempting little preview tease. Just a brief taste to remind us of summer. When I woke up to see the sun shining in and opened the back door to hear the birds singing away (it's like they remember summer too...) I grabbed the camera and wandered out in my robe and slippers. Here are a few things I caught in the golden light.

Oregon Grape, A great northwest native

Chinese Camelia Riot

Cherry Blossoms

New succulent bowl I put together (hanging out at the garden center is dangerous!)

Dreaming of more golden days to come,

Amanda

Side by Side Seed Tray Experiment

2010-03-09T08:42:00.000-08:00

With the weather as warm as it has been (prior to this week!!), and with our mailbox stuffed with seeds every day it was impossible for us not to go ahead and get started on seedlings. Most of the tomatoes and peppers we ordered are under 70 days to harvest, a good way to maximize the odds for harvesting ripe fruit off the vine in our sometimes all too short maritime summers. Those did not require an early start. But we did make a few bets on some over 80 day plants, San Marzano Gigante and Japanese Black Trifle tomatoes, as well as several peppers hubby picked out.
This is our first time starting seeds for vegetables indoors, so we were choosing between recycled toilet paper rolls or a plastic seed starting tray. Loved the recycle-reuse approach of TP rolls, but also admired the high-density in a small space of the plastic tray. We decided to hold a showdown! We picked up a commercial plastic seed tray for 5 bucks at local drugstore (half the price of the local big box hardware store hmmm..), a small square "Corning" style covered casserole from Goodwill to hold the toilet paper rolls - also 5 bucks, and a good organic seed starter mix. The TP rolls were free - but we did cut them a little smaller than halves, to minimize the soil required.

We soaked the seeds overnight in warm water and it was off to the races! Our house is 100 years old and pretty drafty, but the Mr. had installed lovely heated floors in a bathroom remodel recently. This made a perfectly warm spot to park the seeds while we waited for them to germinate. The Corning/tp casserole under it's thick warm glass and the plastic tray under it's snug lid. Both stayed nicely moist under their covers.

The results!? Shocking! I admit I was expecting a bit of a tossup and maybe writing a little comment here about picking what mattered most to you, but that wasn't what happened at all! The Corning/TP seedlings germinated over a week earlier and are so much sturdier! It's shocking! The tomatoes are all up and the peppers are all uncurling today.

The plastic tray seedlings are limping along. They are germinating much more slowly and the few that did make it up already are stringier. Even where we planted the exact same variety...

TP rolls in Corningware is unequivocal the winner!!! I suspect the insulative properties of the glass may be the cause.

Happy seed starting,

Amanda

3/10 Post Script: The absorbant nature of the cardboard is nice too. When you're going to be gone a bit too long one day and can't be home to spritz as often as you like, you can spray the cardboard liberally and it wicks the moisture to the plants throughout the day.

The Cheery Girls of Spring

2010-03-07T13:40:00.000-08:00

A little cheer for those still in the depths of winter. We've enjoyed an early spring here, though our forecast is calling for a bit of a chill this coming week. I used that excuse to pick and pic a few flowers.

I know Meg Ryan told Tom Hanks that daisies are the friendliest flower but I humbly disagree. Daffodils are clearly the friendliest flower of all, welcoming us gently back to spring.

I guess if you're going to be one of the first flowers of spring you really need to be bright and bold to ensure the pollinators find you through the gloom....

This giant Camelia lives under a few fir trees on the edge of our yard and I swear it's a monster! I am not quite sure where it begins and where it ends but it does have beautiful glossy leaves and a purely Hawaiian palate in the earliest of spring. Makes me want to tuck one behind my ear and drink a Mai Tai.

Happy Sunday,

Amanda

The Big Project

2010-02-23T19:48:00.000-08:00

Hubby and I have been busy over the last several weekends planning and preparing our new vegetable (and fruit!) garden. We are clearing most of a 50x50 spot, excluding a corner that sports a few big cherry trees. My parents owned our house before we bought it from them, and they used to keep a garden in this location when I was a teenager. It is fun to be recovering the family garden!

We got the sketch together, marked the corners with orange paint (whee!) and got a little help taking the grass out. We've both been working long hours this spring and we figured there would be more than enough work even after the sod was gone. So far, this appears to have been a good call! We had the gardener put the piles of sod aside for composting, seems like it should compost quite quickly.

After studying up on row design, we ended up choosing 4 foot wide rows with 2 foot aisles between. These apparently have a few advantages - light soil because you don't walk on the bed surface, warm soil from the raised mound in the spring, some shading of the soil in the summer due to the dense planting without so many rows in between. Plus heck, they just look cool. We also included 4 foot paths for major thoroughfares, and plenty of area for the dog to run around the perimeter.

We staked a few beds out and started loosening the soil. It was fairly compact where it had been lawn before. First we loosened the soil with shovel and pitchfork, next we decided to sift the dirt with a sifter we'd made for the compost. That took much longer than we expected, but the soil did end up light and lovely. We had the neighbor's loyal golden retrievers for company. Sorry about the sunspot, but this one was the best angle...(We forget about the sun here in the winter, we see it so rarely!)
In addition to sifting the beds, we also sifted the compost. We plan on planting in a few of these beds quite quickly (onions next weekend!) so we didn't want too much hot/unfinished compost. The lumpy bits (on the left) get returned to the big compost pile for a little more work. 2 beds down, 6 + to go.

Should be quite an adventure! Now we're puzzling on a deer fence...

Ready, Set, Starts!

2010-02-09T20:15:00.000-08:00

With our unseasonably warm temperatures, we're throwing caution to the wind - and a few seeds too. This weekend we cleaned out our pair of 6x8 raised beds, added aged compost from the pile (enriched heavily with free coffee grounds from Starbucks), and filled them spring veggie seeds. Summer veggies are bound for the new garden spot we're clearing, but that's another story for another day.

We direct sowed:
Veronica Hybrid Broccoli
Burpee's Golden Beets
Chiogga Beets
French Breakfast Radish (a lovely gift from a christmas elf!)
5 Color Silverbeet Swiss Chard
Dragon Carrots
French Market Carrots (oh la la it's getting French in here)
Nantes Half Long Carrots

Flat Leaf Parsley (much better than curly leaf and grows better too)
Cascade Harvest Mix Lettuce (free from Puget Sound Fresh @ NWFGS)

Note the liberal use of bamboo stakes. Later wrapped with jute twine for cat discouragement technique. So far so good.

We tried something slightly different with the Sugar and Snow Peas - we sprouted them between wet paper towels after an overnight soak in warm water. Can't say yet if this makes them come up faster - but it does have a satisfying sense of growthiness about it...observe!Since I had the camera, I snapped a few snowdrops from that day...
Have you planted yet?

Amanda

Reading List from the NWFGS

2010-02-07T07:41:00.000-08:00

Ravenna Gardens Display Garden

I treated myself to a day off on Friday to take a spin around the Northwest Flower and Garden show. Among the amazing show gardens, plants, roots, shoots, seeds, greenhouses, coldframes, tools, trinkets, baubles, snacks and As Seen on TV fun there was a large amount of information available from garden groups and nurseries. I was so impressed by the volunteers and professionals that devoted their time and expertise to the show.

Here are a few of the gems that got me excited - a virtual "show homework list" for myself.

Local
Cascade Harvest Coalition is a nonprofit organization dedicated to connecting local farmers and consumers. Coming out with a cookbook soon.

Edible Seattle I had a lovely chat with editor Jill Lightner about growing your own and local food. Loved the articles in the free issue!

Fruit Trees
Western Washington Fruit Organization is a volunteer organization that shared lots of great information. They are holding a field day in March in Mount Vernon.

Seattle Tree Fruit Society shared a sample apple maggot barriers. They have a monthly meetings and informative website.

Plant Amnesty had informative guides for sale that had a quirky writing style. They are holding an event at Sky Nursery in Shoreline on February 20th.

Nurseries
Raintree Nursery had their experts on hand and they were ever so helpful. I got a hot tip on a good fig for our area, the Desert King. Not to mention the coupon...

Specialty Nurseries Association of Western Washington publishes an amazing list of local nurseries! There are more nearby than I ever would have guessed.

I hope you find some of it useful as well!

Amanda

Yardis Catharsis

2010-01-18T20:44:00.000-08:00

What do you on a long holiday weekend? At our house - prune some more! After completing 2.7 Apple trees and a very small cherry tree our brush pile is the size of a Chevy Van. In spite of sore muscles, the work is cathartic and everything looks so much tidier and brighter you start to wonder why you didn't do it in the fall (you mean besides the fact that it was dark and raining?...ok true...).

Did I mention you can do cool stuff with the branches? You can force blossoms indoors and have a lovely indoor bouquet. Chunks of thicker apple and cherry branches are amazing in the bbq after they've been dried for a year. We keep our dried wood stash in the Dogloo on the right of this pic. The dog never really took to it, anyway!

This tree is a late apple of dubious origins. Perhaps a King?They're a lot smaller without all the water sprouts!
(I did mention we're hacks, right?)

You'd be amazed at the moss and other lil things you'd see....While perched on a precarious ladder in an old tree...

Fungus among us

Here's hoping you and yours enjoyed each other, as for us, we'll be sleeping well!

Sweet Dreams,

Amanda

Chorez!

2010-01-10T20:16:00.000-08:00

Today we took advantage of the relatively warm and dry afternoon and did a wee bit o' pruning! We're no pruning experts but every spring we make an attempt to prune our 5 apple trees, 4 Cherries, 2 plums, as well as the other general spring cleanup required by the herbs and flowers. It is a lot of work!

As a teenager I asked my Dad why he spent so much time pruning them every spring. Wouldn't it be better to leave them au naturale? Apparently not! He explained fruit trees are dependent on humans and need pruning or they'll just grow themselves to death! Or something like that? (Hey, I wasn't the greatest listener at that age!) Pruning is also good because it helps you and the sun to be able to reach the fruit.

Hacker's toolkit! Dexter eat your heart out.

Today we pruned one of the two Gravenstein trees on the property. Gravensteins are delicious apples that make amazing pies! If you are looking for a good heirloom apple, they may be for you! This tree had huge water sprouts (good pruning guide) and needed shape improvement so we did a heavy pruning on it. At our house, a light pruning involves taking off the water sprouts and cleaning off dead branches. Heavy pruning more seriously altering the shape. A heavy pruning sometimes leaves you wondering if you went too far but then the leaves come out and the blossoms burst open and all is right with the world again. While we were at it we trimmed the crazy lilac (behind apple on right) behind it and the removed blown over blue spruce(? behind apple on left) that was growing up in its business.

Gravenstein Before

After - hey air and sunshine!

Afterwards it was amazing how much more light was in the yard (from the removed spruce). The greenhouse (out of view, stage right) will benefit from the additional lighting as well, I suspect.

And as if rewarding us for all the hard work, Mother Nature outdid Santa Claus and left us a little present under the apple tree. A little clump of snowdrops just breaking through the soil! Oh green, we've missed you!

Sweet Dreams,

Amanda

Jelly Jelly Bo Belly

2010-01-04T19:20:00.000-08:00

While the normal order of things is to make jelly before Christmas, our schedule scoffed at the notion. We used the quiet weekend after Christmas to sneak in a bit of jelly making before Santa managed to deliver his final presents to all the girls n boys. We harvested our own grape juice earlier this summer, arduously hand processing it before a kind reader pointed out we were doing it the hard way. Presto-changeo we switched to an inexpensive steam juicer and the next thing we knew we'd put away over 30 quarts of the purple stuff.

Apparently canning grape juice prior to making jelly is a good thing, as it allows you to remove any crystals that may form and mar your jelly. No crystals formed in our juice, but better safe than sorry I guess. We followed the Old Fashioned juice recipe from my Kerr canning book. 4 Cups of Juice, 3 cups of sugar, boil boil boil for 25 minutes or until gel stage is hit. I picked this recipe because it had the greatest juice-to-sugar ratio and didn't use added pectin, just the natural pectin in the juice itself. Challenge: gel stage was pretty tough to judge. It wasn't a temperature per se as a state of being. The goal was to have jelly "sheeting off a cold spoon" or if you put a teaspoon of jelly on a jar lid in the freezer for 1 minute it was supposed to be fully set and wrinkle when you pushed on the edge.

Bubble bubble, toil and trouble

Bad news: this method led to a slightly candied jelly with a ribbony consistency. Maybe next time we'll have to try the pectin method. Luckily, there's more juice (har har).

Newspaper stops the stickiness

Good news: amazing on shortbread. I used Martha's basic shortbread recipe. This is a very reliable shortbread recipe - I have made the green tea variation many times for presents.

Dribble

Wish us luck on round 2!

Amanda

The Catalogs are Here!

2009-12-28T20:33:00.000-08:00

Oh Happy Day! That day you reach into the mailbox, after months of waiting...and pull out a shiny new catalog! Catalog reading is a nice peaceful couch-sitting or bathtub soaking activity after the craziness of Christmas.

I've already made a lunch date to do some catalog geeking with a buddy at work. Dad came over to see us for Christmas and hardly talked. He was too busy pouring through all the colorful pages, wondering at the varieties available. He's been more of a Home Depot seed shopper in the past, but this year we're sharing our seed purchasing and planning to split up some of the starter duties as well.

The plan for this year is taking shape - what's got you excited? Here are a couple items that grabbed my attention right offhand:

The Apollo Broccoli at Territorial Seed company appears to be broccolini - can't wait - love this in soups.

The Paris Market Carrot at Seed Savers is super cute. I bet it is tasty too...

Enjoy!
Amanda

Look at Frosty Go...

2009-12-12T09:28:00.001-08:00

Well it's 23 this morning and after a week of sub 10 degree weather, we are breathing a big sigh of relief. The greenhouse thermometer says 40 this morning, surely good news to its citrusy inhabitants. They are only slightly worse for the wear - sporting a little less gloss after the temperatures in the unheated greenhouse dipped below freezing a few nights in a row. A big drink of water all around today!

Here's a shot of the kaffir lime.

Moving on to the yard, frost is pretty if not all that helpful. The lavender looks fine, it must be kept safe by its needle-like leaves.
The gnome in the birdbath seems to be taking the whole thing in stride.
St. Johns Wort with a lovely layer of ice. (There's no killing this stuff - even if we wanted to.)

Italian parsley, very courtly. Can't say as much for the carrot tops. They had a meltdown. Is it still safe to leave the carrots in the ground? May be bringing them in once the garden defrosts in the rain.

In further news this week, Peter Cottontail was spotted running through Mr. McGregor's er....our garden multiple times this week. I am glad he's big enough to be safe from the cats.
Enjoy,

Amanda

South End Grapes take an Eastside Flight

2009-12-06T19:53:00.000-08:00

When I'm not ensconced in my Steilacoom sanctuary, I live in Bellevue, and I work for the man. It is an interesting way to split the time, though I would not recommend it for everyone. One of the perks of spending the weekdays in "town" is the abundance of restaurants and happy hour hangouts. For me, what makes a bar worth visiting is getting to know the people who work there (well, ok, obviously in addition to great drinks and food). Recently, I've had the pleasure of getting to know the nice folks over at Barrio Bellevue. If you get a chance, I heartily recommend that you visit them. The drinks are amazing and thoughtfully crafted, the food is tasty and spicy, and the candle-lit atmosphere is mellow and inviting.

When Mark at Barrio heard me discussing my garden (one track mind, have I!) with my good buddy Wasabi Prime and learned I canned my own grape juice, he told me to bring it in one night and he'd mix up some treats. Recently, I brought in a few quart jars and he was sweet enough to oblige. Mark created a whirlwind of tastes and combinations, each one tastier than the next! It was a bit like watching a scientist in his laboratory, only you got to drink from the beakers. Here's a sampling...

This frothy delight featured eggs, Pisco, and bitters. It tasted a lot like love or maybe ambrosia?

My favorite cocktail is the Aviation, grape juice changed it from the classic sky blue color - we dubbed it "Red Skies at Night". It included one of the delicious preserved cherries that they make there at the bar. Turns out these are made of pie cherries, not sweet. We'll be making some this summer...

Many thanks to the Mark and the crew over at Barrio for indulging us and for showing us how the humble grape can go uptown.

Also many thanks to Wasabi Prime for making this all possible. You rock!

Amanda

Open Letter to Santa

2009-12-03T10:22:00.000-08:00

Not sure what to get your favorite gardener get for Christmas? (hint hint Santa)

1. Felco Shears. This premium brand of garden shears is Swiss made and the classic Felco #2 has been made since 1949. They are a lifetime investment (well unless you've lost one of your pair like me....), as they are solidly made and can be sharpened.

2. Garden clogs. Gardening is dirty business! I am forever stumbling through the garden in flip flops or worse yet in my bare feet. It seems like a pair of these garden clogs by Hunter would come in quite handy.
3. Soothing Ointment. When you have your hands in the dirt all day, scrapes, bumps, bruises, and bites are inevitable. Burt's Bees Res-Q ointment is my favorite remedy to have on hand.

4. Sun Hats. Redheads need head cover in the great outdoors. (And I have the sunburn pictures to prove it...) Wallaroo is my favorite brand of hats, and the string on their Ladies Explorer hat looks like it would be good for making sure you don't forget your hat when you take a break in the shade and forget to put it back on (I mean who does that anyway!)

5. Fruit fly savior? We're still getting rid of fruit flies at our house! Maybe this is related to the compost bowl which often graces our counter? These covered and filtered compost containers look pretty handy to have around the kitchen.

6. Steam Cannery. There seems to be some controversy about the steam canning method. However after waiting for our huge waterbath canner to come to boil many times while canning 36 quarts of grape juice this fall, I'm ready to give it a try, at least for the acidic foods. Steam Canner anyone?

What are you asking for this Christmas?

Amanda

Let's Talk Dirty

2009-11-29T15:21:00.000-08:00

Although this blog usually focuses on the pretty parts of gardening, a lot of dirty work does happen in our humble garden that goes unseen in the flower and veggie money shots. One neglected corner of our garden has been the compost pile, which has grown to the gargantuan proportions of a heap. Kid you not, this thing is about 15x10x3. Most of the garden books seem to refer to 3 cubic feet as the ideal size of a pile. Perhaps this is where we've gone astray...

Since we are planning a big garden expansion next spring (just beyond the white car), we're going to need all the organic matter we can muster. The good news is we have most of what we'll need in the decomposing leaves, grass, and kitchen waste that lay in the former foundation of a root cellar on our property. We were blessed with a fairly dry 3 day weekend so we went at it today, stirring, layering, and wetting the pile.

Here is the before:

And the uhhh now - hopefully after by spring:

A cute little green stink bug resident of the pile. Probably bad news but too cute to kill:
Toadstools!
Amongst the clumpy, slimy, wormy and wet bits, we did discover some nearly finished compost. Maybe neglect can be divine. We filled 2 old trash cans and plan to roll them around over the next few weeks to make sure they're fully cooked and consistent.

We are thankful for worms! Hope you all had a very happy holiday

Amanda & Mike

Plotting on the Garden

2009-11-21T21:50:00.000-08:00

I love fall, what's not to love about leaves on the ground, the smell of smoke fires, and a big pot of soup boiling away on the stove? Toss in a bouquet garni of fresh woody herbs (Rosemary, Sage, and Thyme), and fill your house with a delicious herbal fog.

It's a great time to reflect on the garden. This year's garden was our first veggie garden of our very own. We've had fruits and herbs before, but this was our first year to brave out the vegetable world, and all in all went really well! Our top producers were Tomatoes, Squash, and Onions. Followed by Cucumbers, Sugar Snap and Snow Peas, as well as Tomatillos (finally got the harvest - wow they come late!). Our biggest disappointment was the Lettuce, which was planted in pots and either didn't have enough nutrition or water - it came out a bit too bitter.

Lately, fantasies of next year are taking up a lot of my thoughts. In addition to the raised beds we built this year, we plan on tackling a big garden plot. There used to be a big garden near our cherry trees, but since we weren't so focused on it in the past, the grass moved in. The soil is good, the land is flat, there's water available. Life is good! Initial concept as perhaps a Pennsylvania-Dutch Foursquare design. However after a solid night of searching, a Martha Stewart garden design caught my fancy! I am a systems analyst by trade and I think I was drawn in by the neat rows and columns of plants all lined up like soldiers....

obsessive much?

Stay tuned for updates on fence selection, seed catalog adventures, as well as the possibility of a sod cutter rental...

Amanda