A place in the sun

We've been talking for months about building a raised bed planter in the backyard and thanks to R, it actually happened.

Last month we had these delivered--


Pallet o'pavers

Once the first course was in and level, the stacking went pretty fast (easy for me to say since I didn't do much of it). There was some chiseling involved to get the last block of each round to fit. We're fortunate to build this over an existing sprinkler head.


Raised bed in progress


Raised bed in progress

R filled it with a mixture of mulch & soil and the heirloom tomatoes grown from seed (I'm so proud of that) went right in. These are Mikado Violettor from Wintersown.org.


Heirloom Tomatoes in their new home

The raised bed looks pretty small in the photo above, but here's the view from the other side.


There's room for more

I planted seeds last Wednesday night and the seedlings were poking up a few days later. The radish seedlings appeared in 3 days! We haven't seen any carrots yet. Slackers.


Radishes


Kale


Squash

Yesterday, a co-worker and I visited her husband's business, Los Altos Nursery. As we walked between the rows and rows of plants, fountains, and garden ornamentals, I realized how much I missed my neighborhood nursery that closed years ago. No doubt it was pushed out by the big box stores.

Darryl helped me pick out plants that would do well in late summer/early fall and I came home with these:


Vegetables and herbs from Los Altos Nursery
Clockwise from far left: Yolo Wonder Pepper, Organic Bunching Onions, Bright Lights Swiss Chard, French Tarragon.

Everything went into the ground last night.


LAN vegetables & herbs in their new home

We got a late start, but I'm sure we'll have plenty to harvest this year.


Raised bed garden