Seedlings

In the hooped raised bed, all of the seedlings have sprouted excepted the cleomes. I need to get our warmer weather things sprouting soon. The environment inside gets warm and steamy. It got down to nearly freezing a couple of nights ago, but all seems to have fared well. We're not sure what the wide temperature variations do to the seedlings. It probably goes from 80-90 degrees down to 40 or so. Another thing to research...

Dirt

300 cubic yards of free county compost got dumped on one end of what used to be a semi-circular driveway. (Last fall we built a sukkah/outdoor patio/trellis in the middle third of the driveway.) This driveway is by the gate that goes to the back yard, so we can wheel the dirt right in. Total cost: $90 for the delivery by a dump truck-for-hire that we found on Craigslist, and $0 for the compost. We shared the delivery with another family that took 100 cubic yards (1/4th of the total). For us alone, the fee would have been $100, so we saved a little by doing a double delivery. If we had bought it by the bag at Home Depot, we would have spent about $600. Probably half that for a home bulk delivery. We're glad to have the free stuff! The two of us were able to get a total of 12 wheelbarrows full of compost into the raised beds tonight. We figure that's about 1/10th of the total, so it shouldn't be too bad despite the imposing size of the mountain of dirt... we hope!

Asparagus

Today I purchased 24 Washington asparagus crowns from Walmart for $16. We're going to give these a go and see how they do. There's a room in the bed for about 24 more (we're planting one per square foot), so I may plant the other half with Jersey Giant. The crowns went in bed A5 (the raised bed in the front yard). Still in A5 are a dozen broccoli plants and some flower. I just planted in between what was there.

On a lark, I purchased one Concord grape from Walmart also for $4 just to see what would happen with it. I'm not sure it's one that will grow well here at all, but we'll see what happens. Sunbelt is one kind of Concord-like grape that grows well in the South, and we may give that a try in year 3 of our garden.

D. got part of the raised bed for the berries in place. More to come!

Chickens are now 12-1/2 weeks old. They should start laying at anywhere from 16 to 20 weeks.

Beginnings

We started our garden in our front yard in the spring of 2011, with a 48-square foot raised bed, a 6-foot diameter herb spiral, and two long beds on either side of the herb spiral. Our total square footage in the front was 350 square feet. Now we are working towards an additional 650 square feet of vegetable beds, 600 square feet of orchard space, and a 3,000-gallon tilapia pool.

Progress to date:

We have a 150-square foot raised bed in the back with a hoop cover which is holding 480 seedlings and 23 fruit trees being held there until danger of frost passes in mid-February. We have all the materials we need to build the rest of the raised beds in the back; we just need the time to build them!