The Modern Victory Garden

Today marks a milestone and one worth celebrating! I was able to double dig the last of the new garden beds today - which means that the garden expansion project is now ...(drum roll please!).... COMPLETE!   When I started this project late last year, I knew it was going to take a lot of work (and time) to see it to a successful conclusion. This last phase of digging and amending the beds had to be finished up soon in order for them to be available for planting crops for the 2009 season. So after many days of cutting down trees, clearing brush, digging up roots and tree stumps, constructing new beds, and then double digging - the project is now officially checked off as "Done!".                                                                            

To get things started this morning, I moved the rectangular containers with lettuces and green onions out of the greenhouse and out to the deck area.  In one of the containers which was recently emptied, I planted the basil seedlings.

Moving these outside made room in the greenhouse for some additional pots to plant up the pepper crop.  This year, I am growing all of the peppers in the greenhouse.  I freshened up the existing pots with some sifted compost and filled the additional pots with potting soil mix.  Six "Early Jalapeño" and six "Miniature Bell" peppers were planted up and the remaining plants were repotted into larger containers.  I will be taking these remaining pepper plants in to work in about a week to give away to some friends and co-workers.  Here are the plants in their new home.  On the floor are the other seedlings that are undergoing the hardening off process.

The remainder of the day was spent prepping the final new bed in the garden expansion project area.  It took me just over 5 hours to dig and prep this bed. It was actually a little easier to dig (less compacted) than the bed I dug yesterday. This is how it looked after I finished the dig process.

This bed is destined to hold zucchinis, winter squash, and pumpkins. To get it ready for planting, I laid out the last two soaker hoses and did my best to get them reasonably spaced across the bed.

This was then covered by green plastic mulch. This warms the soil, retains moisture, and suppresses weed growth. I anchored it down with the last of the rusty old earth staples that I had on hand. I really needed more staples to anchor it down well, but I made do with what I had available.

I did not go on to actually transplant the various cucurbit family plants because they have not been fully hardened off yet AND because the weather forecast is calling for some very chill temps on Tuesday night (upper 30's/low 40's). I am going to wait until at least Thursday (probably Saturday) to plant them out as a result.  However, the bed is all prepped and ready to go - so it will not take much time at all to get that task attended to.  

After dinner tonight, I popped back outside and took these over view pictures of the garden expansion area.       

These 3 big new beds, the new vertical grow bed, and the retaining wall bed (in the older section of garden) - add a lot of additional capacity to my garden.  I am quite happy with how it all turned out. Even happier to have this big push of work behind me!                                                           

Give a little whoop and holler of celebration on my behalf!