garden | Jardin de Smitherrama

Veggies have been planted.

This bed has: tomatoes, peppers, beans, broccoli, spinach, lettuce, & onions.

Plotting out where I wanted the taller plants to go.

Finished. Starting at the top left corner and going down the columns: Marigolds, onions, onions, marigolds, spinach, spinach, lettuce, lettuce, broccoli, beans, beans, pepper, tomato, tomato, pepper, pepper.

Pumpkin was helping me supervise.

Hopefully the cage will keep all the really bad pests out.

Nothing Smells Better Than Lilacs

We planted 3 lilac bushes to grow along our fence not only to look & smell beautifully, but also to hide those aforementioned dumpsters.

From left to right: Ludwig Von Spaeth, Congo, President Lincoln lilac bushes

Ludwig Von Spaeth Lilac. Planted 05/2016

Congo Lilac. Planted 05/2016

President Lincoln. Planted 09/2015

Covered Wagon Style Cage

I fear that squirrels are going to be the biggest pest Jardin de Smitherrama has to contend with considering there is a dumpster within close proximity to our backyard. We constructed a cage in hopes of keeping them at bay.

Wood laths were used to create the grid. $0.52/each

Started adding chicken wire around our PVC wagon hoop frame. Initially had chicken wire meet at pipe and zip tied.

Realized a better method is to wrap chicken wire around bottom edge of frame to reduce possible gaps for pests to crawl through.

Easiest method seemed to be draping as much of the chicken wire around the frame as possible. This one is constructed with 3 pieces of the chicken wire.

Hopefully this will keep out the bigger pests while still allowing in beneficial pollinators.

Moar Dirt!

Cleared rocks & weeds from 4ft x 4ft area where first raised bed was positioned. Filled with 16 cu ft of organic vegetable soil.

Measured out garden spacing so we’d know where first bed would go.

Cleared out rock & weeds. Added some soil to help even out space.

Put down weed cloth. Plastic stakes broke because of underground rocks. Used some rocks to hold cloth.

Added 16 cu ft of soil.

Ta-da! Ready for veggies.

The Humble Box

DIY 12″ raised garden bed. Built with 4 – 2″x4″x8′ cedar boards, each cut in half; 1 – 4″x4″x8′ cedar post cut into 4 pieces for the corners. Secured with brackets for stability.