Roto-tilling and Other Adventures

Since Max is on Spring Break, here's a short update on my gardening adventures.  My seed starts from last week are beginning to sprout! 

The cukes are the fastest out of the gate!  The white pack on the far left is the pickling cukes, which I plan to make both dills and bread & butter pickles with.

 These are some of our potatoes.  I love this leafy green plant, which sometimes will get white flower blooms.  I know these will be ready once the green portion dies off.

Basic potato strategy is to cut off any eyes that are growing on a potato in the kitchen and plant it in a pot.  This way we pretty much have potatoes year round!

 Here are some carrots in a container.  I also have carrots planted in several other areas.  We love the French varieties, which are short and round.  Purple carrots are also a favorite.

This is one of my SFG (Square Foot Gardening) boxes that Larry made out of repurposed boards from Max's play structure.  The snails have decided to munch on my green beans, so I'm outlining the box with diatomaecous earth.  Theoretically the snails will not cross this line....so far, so good.

This isn't quite a before picture (too embarrassing.....weeds were over 2 feet high before I took them down with the weed whacker) of our back vegetable bed.  It's super hard to plant from seed because although it seems flat, we're on a hill and the slope causes all the seeds to wash into the corner.

So here I am roto-tilling the back bed.  I am lucky that I married Larry.  He has a well stocked garage full of useful tools.  We've had this for quite some time.  When I got interested in gardening on a slightly larger scale, there it was...a roto-tiller, just waiting to be used!  This task would be nearly impossible without the tiller.

And here is the result of the roto-tilling efforts!  Although the tiller isn't hard to use, it really takes a toll on your hands and arms.  They are sore several days after I accomplished this clear out. As soon as my seedlings get a bit bigger, I'll move them up here.

So that's the update on my gardening adventures!  Thanks for reading and enjoy the rest of your day!

Cheers~

Marti