Garden Progress and Pointers

I spent 8 hours in my garden today! YaY! That’s as close to heaven on earth that I can get!! I don’t usually have the privilege of that much uninterrupted time to garden, but today I had a goal to meet. I had to get my tomatoes, squash, cucumbers and some pumpkins planted. Why all today? Well, because for the first time in several years, my family is taking a vacation!!!! We are headed to Tybee Island, Georgia. We are all very excited! More about that later. I want to brag on all my work today! :-)

Before I could plant, I had to get the beds prepared. My goal is to build beds completely by the lasagna gardening (layering, no till) method. I hope that this is the last year I will have to till. I tilled three 4’x16’ raised beds twice over…once to break up the ground and once to till in the horse manure, hay and shredded leaves. I didn’t take many pictures, ‘cuz I was busy and and kinda forgot that I wanted to share and ‘cuz it can be hard to see the differences in layers. Here are a few:

 

A bean seedling…nice and healthy with the both halves of the bean seed still attached you don’t see them come up that way very often. I thought it was noteworthy. ;-)

A bunch of bean seedlings and a gardening tip…I have two dogs, one is a young beagle that won’t stay out of my garden beds! My brother-in-law said to lay some blackberry stalks in the bed to help her decide that is NOT where she wants to be. The stalks are laying in amongst the beans.

The squash and zuchinni that  I planted in the newspaper cups and paper towel tubes needed to go into the ground. I knew they wouldn’t last in the little pots til we got back.

The point of starting the seeds in the tubes and newspaper, is so that you can put them into the ground right in the pot, without disturbing their roots. The squash and pumpkin family really don’t like to be disturbed once they get going.

 

I loosened the pot up and it tore a little and then I just buried the whole thing!

I did pull the dirt up closer around the plant. After they were all in, I watered them.

Here’s another garden tip, after watering, I surrounded them with several layers of newspaper to keep the weeds down and the moisture in. Newspaper is readily available and FREE!

Next I spread mulched hay (courtesy of Rumplestiltskin)on top of the newspaper for more mulch and it looks better than the newspaper. Both the hay and newspaper breakdown quickly. In the beds where I did this last year, there is almost no sign of the newspaper and hay. Great soil builder!

 

Here’s a close up of one very comfy, cozy squash plant!

Everything got planted just in time. Tomorrow it is supposed to rain and I’ll be inside packing! I’m going to take my very tired (and sore) self to bed! Good Night!

But first, I’ll link up to a few places: