Thursday, June 4, 2009

The Beds are All Made

Last weekend Andy finished making the raised beds and installed them for me. I was so excited to see them all finished. After installing them he made me a template and marked off 1 foot increments on the frame so I could measure out the spacing of the plants. He also made a support board for me that I can use during planting and harvesting so I can easily lean into the bed without damaging the plants or compacting the dirt. My man is so awesome!

Here are the finished beds by the fence and near the rhody tree. There are 5 beds in total which are 4'x8' each. This picture was taken from inside the guest bedroom (sorry for the bit of window glare on the left side of pic).



Here's the first 3 beds with the seedlings all planted.



A closer look at bed #1. This bed contains 12 tomato plants of several different varieties, basil, 6 peppers (2 each of yellow, red, and green), and 8 eggplants.

Bed #2 has two rows of carrots (haven't sprouted yet, but are sowed), parsley, green beans (bush - blue lake), and cucumbers off to the far right.

Bed #3 has 2 rows of broccoli, 2 rows of beets, 1 row of cabbage, 1 row of califlower, and 1 row of bok choy.

A wider view of the 2 beds near the house and the rhody tree.

Ellie inspecting bed #4 - the lettuce. She's on varmit partrol! Bed #4 has onions, mixed lettuce, broccoli rabe, and 2 butternut squash.

Bed #5 - the squash bed. This has yellow summer squash (Zephyr) and Zucchini (Cashflow). Both of which I grew from seeds that I bought from Johnny's.

Around the back of the house near a huge holly tree is the pea bed (which are doing great - surprisingly so - and has lots of flowers!) and an empty bed near the bulkhead in which I'll plant potatoes. This area actually gets a good amount of sun even though the holly tree appears really close in this picture. The sun sets in the direction opposite from the tree so it doesn't shade the plants.

Ellie near the future potato bed. I bought potato seeds from Gurney's which are expected to arrive this Monday. Hopefully I'll have a late summer/fall crop. Ellie had just finished chasing a chipmunk and is all wired up - love my little terrier!

Another view for you so you can get some perspective.

Yet another view... On the left is the fence where the 3 beds are. To the right are the 2 beds by the rhody tree. Look at that lush green grass! Andy is so proud especially considering that he started with a mess this spring. His hard work has paid off.

Along the fence to the left of the beds is a peony bush that is ready to burst forth with flowers as well as a clematis vine growing upwards towards a birdhouse. Right after that is our small berry patch where about 20 little strawberry plants are and two baby blueberry bushes reside. At the end of that area is a butterfly bush, lavender plant, and then another holly, which is out of the picture below but you can see it in the picture above. The bird house in this area is prime digs. It's occupied every spring - usually by either a titmouse or chickadee family. Right now there's a chickadee nesting in it, but a few weeks ago a titmouse was nesting. Seems as soon as one bird family moves out another moves right in. I'm awful at taking pictures of birds so I don't have any to show you, but the chickadees are in there - drives poor Ellie nuts as she sits underneath the bird house and barks like crazy.



Well that's my tour. I hope you enjoyed it. I'll post more pictures as things progress.

11 comments:

Jezibels said...

Jackie~ I love your raised beds they are so cute and absolutely weed free! way to go!

Catherine@AGardenerinProgress said...

I really enjoyed the tour :) Your raised beds look great. I always think the vegetables growing look just about as pretty as the flowers. I really like your birdhouse with the clematis. We have a very similar type in our yard and Chickadees are nesting in it too.
Good thing you have Ellie Mae to keep those chipmunks away :)

Unknown said...

What beautiful vegie gardens. I always think they look so nice in raised beds. Yes, your man is awsome and he did a fantastic job!
Very nice yard and love the Clematis/Birdhouse.

Heather said...

You will so love the raised beds for veggies. I didn't enjoy gardening until I had them and now I can't imagine not having them. Can't wait to see how well they all grow. They look great!

Stacy said...

Your beds look fantastic! Not a weed in sight. I love your Rhodie tree too. I don't think I've seen one that big before!
Stacy

Tatyana@MySecretGarden said...

Jackie, not only the raised beds look nice, but your lawn is so green and healthy! (And big... It means there is a potential for a flower and vegetable garden...) Rododendron is a beautiful.

Sunweeds said...

I love all your big trees in the background, are they yours or borrowed landscape from neighbors? I'm so jealous of your wonderful green lawn, we are still in a drought.

Ellie Mae's Cottage said...

Stacy, The rhoddie is really old - don't know how old but the previous owner said it's been there forever. When we bought the house it was a mess and that entire area was a jungle. We cut it back into a tree shape and loved the look of the lower branches exposed.

Tatyana, the grass area was also a mess when we moved in. Actually there was no grass. It was just piles of garbage really. There were old tires there, railroad ties, felled trees, and even old children's toys (nothing good) and an old broken child's pool. The garbage was stacked so high we had to get a dumpster to remove it. We then had the land leveled, loam added, and grass planted. Andy also put in a sprinkler system. Its the one area of the yard that gets lots of sun so now that I love to garden I would love to cut some great garden beds into it but Andy would never go for that after all the work he put into cleaning it up. But, who knows, maybe one day I'll convince him.

Sunweeds, the trees along the back of the property belong to our Neighbors. Those are the ones give our yard so much shade so I can't cut them down, but I'd love to. Not that I like cutting down trees (I hate to take down a tree), but these trees create so much shade that it's difficult for anything to grow and I would like a bit more sun for my garden. The other large trees towards the area where the rhoddie is (which is in the front of our property) are our trees. These don't shade the garden because of the way the sun sets so they don't bother me. It is nice to have so many trees on such a small piece of land - we only have a half acre but have lots of green. And with New England being a fairly wet climate everything stays pretty lush.

-Jackie

Dirt Princess said...

Looks great! Ellie May has such a nice yard to run and play in. Those raised beds are awesome...Andy did a great job

Pat said...

Love raised beds...yours are all so tidy ! My DH uses them for his tomatoes.

admin said...

Everything looks great, can't wait to watch them grow over the season.