I always have my eye on other people’s garden space so when my brother and sister-in-law decided not to use their garden beds this year since they were expecting a baby, I jumped on the opportunity to double my growing space. They have seven raised beds in total and told me I could use five. The other two are full of strawberries and asparagus.

This is what the beds look liked before: 

At the end of April, a friend, my daughter and I spend a day (or two) weeding, digging up the beds and amending with soil. The beds were extremely dry and difficult to work. Also the soil level had reduced significantly from previous growing seasons so we hauled in about 25 cubic feet of Soil Booster from Green Acres Nursery and 5 cubic feet of Earthworm Castings. A flurry of seed starting happened immediately when I knew I was getting the space. Because I will not be there every day to harvest, my plan was to plant things that don’t need constant attention.

Here is what the beds look like after weeding and new soil (and only 1 broken sprinkler pipe!):

I drew up a garden plan of what I wanted in the garden. Since I started everything from seeds my plan changed based on what survived sprouting, up-potting and transplantation.

This is everything I planted:

Bed #1: (farthest right bed)

– Delicata Squash

– Waltham Butternut Squash

– Detroit Red Beets

– Scarlet Nantes Carrots

– Blue Lake Bush Beans

– Cosmos

Bed #2:

– Lacinato Kale (6)

– Acorn squash

– Blue lake beans growing on bamboo trellis

– Zinnias (4)

– Mikado Turnips

Bed #3:

– Lemon Cucumber

– Space Master Cucumber

-Thyme

– Basil

– Tomato (Varieties: Big Boy, Sungold, Better Bush, John Baer, Moon Glow, Striped German, Hillbilly Potato Leaf & Fox Cherry)

– Zinnia (California Giant and Cool Canyon)

Bed #4:

– Green Raven Zucchini

– Black Beauty Zucchini

– Early Jalapeño Peppers (2)

– Sweet Banana Peppers (3)

– Celosia

– Bachelor’s Buttons

Bed #5:

– Tomato (Varieties: Nebraska Wedding, Moon Glow, John Baer, Sungold, Hillbilly Potato Leaf, Persimmon, Striped German, Big Boy)

– Borage

– Basil

– Giant Sunflowers

Sounds impressive huh? I am pretty impressed with myself too! I can’t believe I was able to start all of these plants from seed and able to fill a huge amount of space that otherwise would have been unproductive. I’m still waiting for some small basil plants to get a bit bigger before I transplant them and I think I will tuck in a few herbs here and there. Otherwise, this garden is ready to go!

Here are a few pictures from June 4th of what the garden looks like and a picture of our first harvest: