Day 24

   Yesterday, I finished setting up the fourth box, which will be used for summer vegetables like tomatoes.  The grid lines have not been placed yet, but I had to put sticks in there to keep my cats from using it as a new giant kitty litter box. ^^;

   I put the stepping stones to keep our feet clean when the dirt around the box gets wet from watering or rain.  You can see the elm seeds everywhere.  They are blown off the trees now, so I just have to watch the little seedlings and make sure to pull them out before they get taller and harder to pull.  They grow deep roots and can be very hard to pull out of the soil.

   Spring vegetables box on Day 24.  It looks like a patchwork quilt of green! :D

   The mesclun salad mix square today.  There's a nice mix of different greens, but this was one of the squares that got trampled on badly by the cats the other day.  I lost a lot of seedlings.

   The radish square.  They are getting bigger and filling out the square nicely.  You can see the damage on the leaves on the lower left of this image -- that's kitty damage. XD

   My little jellybean-shaped garden pond. :)  It's more of a puddle than a pond size-wise (I have a fish tank that holds more water than this in the house.), but it entertains the cats during summer (They just watch the goldfish.  It's their favorite hangout.) and I love it, although I would love to put a larger pond in my backyard some day.  There are two waterlilies in there -- one white and one pink.  In the middle of summer, the whole surface is completely covered by lily pads.  I just put 3 feeder goldfish in there for added color and mosquito control.  They are only about 2 inches long, including the tail, but they usually grow very large in one season from all the nutritious fresh bugs they get to eat.

Spring Vegetables Box: Day 16

   The spring vegetables box that got started on April 8th (Easter Sunday) is now starting to look fun with seedlings in just about every square.  This is when things start to get exciting.  Their growth is noticeable from one day to the next.

   It's been a fun chore to pick out the seeds from the Chinese Elm trees in the neighborhood that fall in our SFG boxes.  They're so pesky this time of the year.  Years ago, I lived next to an old couple who enjoyed flower gardening in a smaller scale.  The old man would be seen vacuuming the elm seeds with his Electrolux out in their driveway, vacuuming the flower bed.  I thought it was comical back then, but now I think he was brilliant.   I got the paving blocks brought over from the abandoned garden plot to keep my shoes from getting muddy when I water the boxes.  This has been a "build as you go" kind of project all along.

   The "Alaska" peas seedlings.  I planted two to a hole.  Almost all of them successfully germinated, so I'll have to thin them when they get a little bigger.  I just realized that the recommended spacing for peas in the SFG method is 8... not 9. XD  Oh, well. (I guess I can pluck out the center ones from each square?)

   My husband got the frame for the third box ready.  We'll put a weed barrier on the bottom and it will be growing a crop of corn for us this season.  There will be a fourth box of summer vegetables.  I'm still waiting for the local nursery's veggies to grow a little bigger.  I checked their green house yesterday and their tomato, pepper, and eggplant were still tiny baby seedlings.  Technically, our area's average last day of frost is April 29.  There has been some years with killing frosts as late as the first week of May, so I'm going to play it safe with those tender summer veggies and wait a little longer.

   Bridal Veil shrub coming into bloom.  Our cats love to curl up under this shrub, hidden away from others, cool from the hot sun.  Speaking of hot, it was almost 90 degrees yesterday.  The weather man on the news said it's about 20 degrees above the normal average daily high for this time of the year.

   And because it's been so warm, my irises have started blooming about a week ago.  This is a rhizome I got from a friend years ago and I don't know the name of the variety, but I have many around the house. XD   I did a better job of keeping the weed under control in my perennials bed last season, and they seem to be doing much better.

Photo of the Box on Day 13

   A quick snap shot taken this morning of the spring veggies box.  The sticks everywhere (which I forgot to remove before taking this picture... ^^; ) are in there as 'cat deterrent' -- they are not the prettiest, but cheap and accomplish the job.   I saw the first of the carrot seedlings coming up this afternoon.

   Radish square from April 17, 2012.

   The same square on April 21,  2012.  Time to thin them out.