We are adding to the family...

The garden family that is. These are 4 of the 6 new boxes that we or should I say Ivan has added for me. He builds them and fills them with the top soil and then I plant the seeds and weed and care for it. =)
The two front one s are deeper. I wanted the one on the right for carrots and they need a deep bed to grow for the length so this is it. I put corn on the right since I want to be sure actually get some to harvest.

Our corn is coming along exceptionally well. Last year at the point it was purple and stunted and very sad looking. We found out it was a phosphorus problem and added ash from the wood stove to help out with this. So far it seems to be doing ok. We will see as the season progresses. The picture below is the corn from 10 days ago so you can see the difference.

 It has gotten very full as you can see. Now to hope it grows tall and actually gets corn. That would be nice!

And my herbs pots are coming along very nicely as well. We made sure everything had lots of fertilizer because I think last year we did not have enough. I have even been able to start using these in my cooking.
We have been very lucky for an exceptional spring this year, warm and mild, with only a bit of rain and not to many tornadoes. I am really hoping for a mild summer so the garden does not bake. We'll see =)
Enjoy your week!

It's SPRING!!!

 It is that time of year again, at least here in the south, and garden prep and planting is well underway. My biggest and strongest helper is hard at work helping me get soil ready, new boxes built and filled and the fence put up to keep out the large dogs.There is no keeping the small dog out, his nick name is Houdini.

 Getting this fence up is vital to the health of my garden. Not only do my dogs like to wander in here but once we add fertilizer they want to eat it and the fruits and vegetables. We had this from last year and even with the garden expansion we were able to make it work. It does not keep out Tucker (aka Houdini), he can slip under easily but he has learned to stay out of the boxes so we let him wander.

 It is not very tall but it is a psychological thing. (for me not Tucker) and the big dogs =) Ivan has mowed in there now and weed wacked and everything looks so nice.

The corn is now transplanted in it's box and then I found out it does not do well with transplanting. Of course, because I did not look this up and it had never occurred to me you could not. Some days...

I am really excited about the garden this year. I did add a lot of wood stove ash to the corn this year so hopefully it won't turn purple and get stumpy. It is getting bigger and seems to be staying green. We shall see...

Stay tuned for more pics and see how awesome this garden will be (we can only hope)