The beds are ready!!

So the next couple of weeks should end our cold snap season and the plants should do well in the garden. Due to some family stuff, we haven't been home the past two weekends. That means no yard/gardening time for me. Well tonight Joel and I made a quick run to the store and picked up some soaker hoses.

I managed to get them laid in and my square feet marked out with string.




And a view from the steps into the kitchen...



I'm hoping the soaker hose will do a good job of watering for me, anyone have an opinion on them?

And my poor seedlings, we were out of town for 5 days last week and I think the lack of watering has set them on a bad path. The cantaloupes still look strong, but I'm not sure any are going to be great producers. And yeah, I know I need to sharpen the mower blades and get them out of the house. ;-)





Hopefully this weekend we'll be able to get to the nursery and grab some seedlings from them. After all, I do have 64 square feet to fill up.

Started the garden...well the plants anyways.

I'm still on my quest to find vermiculite that won't cost me an arm and a leg. The local nursery wants $20 for 4 cubic feet. With the size I'm doing (2 4'x8' plots) I will end up putting $60 into just the vermiculite.

Anyways, I started the seeds tonight. Spent a few hours out in the shop building some quick seedling trays. I will probably end up changing or atleast adding paper cups under the peat moss cups. They leak horribly and Erin's going to kill me if I make a mess on the floor every time I water (not to mention I don't want to have to clean up the mess every night).

I have 10 brandy wine tomato's, 10 beef steak tomato's, 5 chives, 10 onions, 10 canteloupes, & 5 oregano's started. I'm thinking I might start a few more once I get these in the ground. Maybe a late crop of oregano I can keep inside and a few more chives to plant later in the season.

Here's a couple of shots of the seedling trays.








And here's a rough sketch of how I'm going to lay out the beds.







The lay out still needs a little work, but that gives you the gist of how it's going to go.