It Didn't Take Long to Decide

Thanks for the encouragement and suggestions as I was deciding whether to garden next to the neighbor's garage.  I think I had already made my mind up before I was finished typing the post, but wanted to hear about how close I could get to the trees.  I would love to make raised beds there, but don't want to spend the money to do that yet.  I may decide to do it next year, depending on how the garden grows this year.  I told Jeff that there are lots of roots, but I have lots of hope.  Some of the roots are from trees that got cut down, and came up easily.

On my way home from church, I stopped at a garden center and bought enough seeds, potatoes, and onion plants to fill in the whole area.  How does that happen so fast?  First, you don't have the room, then you have it and it fills up just like that?  

I left plenty of room next to the line of trees, but may try planting some flowers here and there. The dumpster is due back tomorrow.  The tree in the foreground looks to be dead, but I think Jeff is finished cutting trees down, so I'll have to live with it there.  I want to put one more bed where the dumpster is, but it may be too close to the tree for veggies.  I may plant flowers there.

I dug the 2 far beds by hand, and the dirt was surprisingly easy to turn.  Larry tilled the rest for me because it was going to rain soon, and I wasn't going to have time to do the rest.  The reason the area in the front doesn't have the darker chunks is because I applied composted cow manure to the back ones, and it was wet, and hard to break up.   It was starting to rain, so I just planted without the manure. I planted several kinds of lettuce, a couple kinds of radishes, beets, and kale in short rows next to a row of potatoes that didn't fit in the other beds.

The green compost fence in the corner didn't show up in the pic, but Jeff is nicely letting me put one there.   He is also leaving the stack of sticks for a shelter for butterflies.  I may put them closer to the compost area.  I plan to plant lots of sunflowers in the back of what's been planted so far.

Here's the view from the other direction.  If you click on the picture to see it large, you'll see that I planted onions in the first bed.  I alternated rows of red and a yellow keeper.  I am sharing the veggies with Jeff,  his daughter and her two children.  She and the kids are moving into the house in May.  We can be eating the red onions all summer and leave room for the keepers to grow and mature.  I planted them on the edge, because they need to stay as dry as possible when they are almost ready to be picked.

Next to the onions, are 2 beds of potatoes.  I planted Yukon Golds and Vikings.  The Vikings are a later maturing potato that are supposed to have heavier yields.

I got enough things done in our yard, and across the street, that I am ready for the rain we are supposed to have.  We are supposed to have lows in the upper 20s later in the week, but I think we'll be OK.  Now, I'm excited for the time to come when we can safely plant the plants that need warm weather.