Grow Your Own: Planting in the Beds

A big part of summer for us is our garden. Or, should I say, gardens. We have an enormous yard and have tried to minimize how much grass there is (and mowing, too). The first year that I moved in, brother helped me build two raised garden beds.

Here, in Western Washington, we have two seasons. Summer and Rain. We got WAY more than our fair share this year, though.This is what our poor garden looked like after 9 months of rain.

Yep, pretty sad. But, doesn't the little veggie wheat pasting add some interest? :D

 We decided that after four years of veggies, it was time to add some new top soil. We got a trailer full of mushroom compost from Great Western. Then, we dumped some into the beds and tilled it. By hand. It was hard. Not all of it went into these two beds. We have other planting areas that I'll show off some other time. The soil was way too hot to plant in that day. The mushroom mixture had sat in the trailer for a couple of days, and it was literally steaming when we were shoveling it into the wheelbarrows! We tilled again yesterday, and then planted those babies this morning!

Ahhhh... much better. In the ground, we have 5 or 6 different kinds of carrots - 'cause we like 'em all different colors - and 3 kinds of radishes (white globe, watermelon and easter egg). We also have green onions, lots of brussels sprouts, asparagus, basil, leeks and garlic. We also have two pots with tomatoes.

 And microgreens. This is the first time I've ever done microgreens. I need to go get some more seed packets for them as they are ones to sow continuously. See them resting on my new potting tables made from pallets? Brother will probably share more about those. That's all I'm going to share today, but it's not all there is about our garden. I'll share more throughout the summer and fall in our Grow Your Own series of posts.