The vegetable garden

The vegetable garden was planted the last Sunday in April. Since we have such crappy soil here (it's all clay), we went with a raised bed. The frame is 6 feet by 4 feet, which I divided into 24 squares. I put dwarf bicolor marigolds around the corners and edges to attract pollinators and good bugs (good bugs are the ones that kill bad bugs - LOL!) I also planted some mature chamomile, spaghetti squash, and tomato (red and yellow heirloom varieties) seedlings.

Of the seedlings I grew indoors, I planted Buttercrunch and Romaine lettuce, leeks, and three varieties of pepper: red bell, yellow bell, and jalapeño. The pepper seedlings look very healthy, but the leeks and lettuce seem wimpy, so I'm not sure how they will turn out. Let's just say that I don't think Farm Fresh Delivery needs to worry about losing me as a customer anytime soon.

I planted fennel, scallions, rainbow Swiss chard, and raddichio from seeds. After just 10 days, everything is starting to come up except the fennel. Of course, it's rained here just about every bloomin' day since I planted the garden. Isn't that the way it goes? 

At least the garden has good drainage. For soil, we bought a truckload of organic compost topsoil from Dammann's (local nursery) and mixed that with a large bag of Monrovia organic sphagnum peat moss compost. It's all about good soil, I've heard.

I put some herbs in containers around the raised bed: marjoram, Greek oregano, French tarragon, stevia and a bay leaf tree. I also bought four cucumber plants, but haven't quite figured out what to do with them yet: they need a place to climb. 

We'll see how it goes! I'll keep you posted periodically.