Spring Flowers

Some of the earlier bloomers:

Raised Beds

We've completed the expansion of the vegetable garden from last year's two 4'x8' raised beds, to eight.  Built the raised beds from prefabbed corners and un-treated 2"x6" boards.   We filled with a couple of truckloads of  topsoil from the local garden center, along with some compost.   In between the beds, we laid down anti-growth fabric and stone, to avoid having to cut and trim grass between the beds.  You'll also see in the picture that we've constructed a frame of PVC pipe on the one bed, so we can drape bird netting over our tomato plants, and still maintain easy access. 

Rain Rain Rain

This weekend we got a lot of rain.  2.5 inches worth! We needed it badly, as according to the newspaper, even after all this we are still behind the average rainfall total for the year.

Nugget plant #2 (not the one shown in the last post) has concentrated all it's energy into a single bine, and is going crazy, over a foot tall.

Start of Hop Growing

The four hop rhizomes arrived a few weeks ago (2 Cascade and 2 Nugget).  I built four 2'x2' raised boxes for them.  The boxes were filled with half topsoil, half compost/manure.  Plus since hops are supposed to like well drained soil, I split a 40lb bag of sand between the boxes as well.  Once the rhizomes were planted 2 inches deep, the soil was mulched with some straw.

 

 After about 2 weeks or so in the ground, all four have broke ground, all with multiple bine shoots. This is the one Nugget, which is the furthest along.

Materials for the two part trellises have been bought, and are currently under construction.  Digging of the holes as well.  Once the trellises are up, more pics will follow!