I built a raised RAISED bed

This past Tuesday the sun came out and I snuck into the woodshop to build this beauty. Hoorah! Feels so good to be working in the sunshine with cedar wood and power tools.

First of all, why build a garden bed 3 feet off the ground with stilts? It's more work up front, costs a little more cash money, and doesn't provide a ton of square footage to garden with. Here are the benefits:

• Mobility. You could pick up this baby and lug it around town if you wanted! Mobility is nice if you don't own a yard and anticipate moving. Also if you want to turn your entire backyard into a slip'n'slide without any obstructions. Whatever your reason, mobility creates flexibility, this is good.

• Easy on the back. Less crouching, knees in the dirt and leaning over. Simply luxurious

• Pet friendly. If your dogs can jump into this bed then they deserve a garden treat. 

• Visually appealing. If you have a smaller yard, the heightened raised bed will give the appearance that its taking up less space than it actually is. 

So, I've never built a bed like this before. Here's how I figured out how and what to do...

First step: Dreaming and inspiration seeking

I knew the basics of what I wanted: 

• A raised bed about 3 ft. tall
• accessible from one side (this bed is going to be put up against a fence). That means it can't be too wide.
• soil deep enough for root veggies
• enough square footage for a new gardener. (that means, not so much its overwhelming!)
• not too expensive.. 

I found this image on google. Sweet, I can work with this.

Second Step: Come up with a plan

• I found this plan on Ana Whites website. (She is the bomb) Click the picture for a link to the plan.
• Make adjustments for your needs
• This bed didn't provide quite enough square footage for me. So.. I built two!
• I made the bed deeper for root veggies by adding an extra foot.
• I also made it cheaper by using heavy duty screws called lag bolts. Ana's plan called for regular bolts which were more costly.
• My bed will be holding twice as much soil and rain water so I needed to make the weight bearing capacity higher. In Ana's plan the bottom is comprised of hardware fabric, staples and wooden slats. I substituted small screws for the staples and doubled the number of wooden slats. My bed is TOUGH.

• P.S. I didn't come up with these adjustments myself. I asked for help at Lowe's and asked wood working friends lots of questions. On my own I would never save any money or guild anything sturdy. 

Here she is! 

Tra La! This picture was taken before I put on the wooden slats. 

Questions?

It's Thyme to Plant Seeds

Hello Garden friends we planted a lot of our cool weather plants a couple weeks ago. Here's how:

What Seeds Should I plant?

Start with cool weather crops. I wrote about cool weather plants here. You can also start getting ready for summer plants. I'll do a round of summer crop seeds this weekend or next. 

What should I plant my seeds in?

Get some good potting mix. I explained where to get it and what to look for in my Ft. Thomas Florist post here. Buy something new, this is not the place to go cheap and dig up dirt from your yard. That may work, but your baby plants won't have access to as many nutrients as they want and need. Using yard dirt instead of a seed starter mix is like switching baby formula for Kool-aide.

We used egg cartons to plant in. Feel free to get creative with your container too. Just make sure the container can drain water. The deeper your container, the longer you can wait to transplant. 

How wet does the soil need to be?

Combine your potting soil with water. Pick up the wet mixture and squeeze it in your hand. You want it to take a moldable form. Not too wet that it drips between your fingers. Not too dry that it crumbles apart. 

How deep do you plant seeds?

Plant seeds 2-3 times their actual size

Each seed is packed with just enough punch to work its way up out of the soil and into the sun. If its planted too deep then it will struggle to make it up all the way. For itty bitty seeds like Thyme, just press them into the surface of the soil. They don't even need to be covered.

Where do we put them when we're done?

Put your planted containers somewhere that they will get enough light. We put ours by the window and added some lights to help out. For cool weather seeds, room temperature around 55-65 degrees is fine. Summer crops will want warmer temperatures to pop up. Put them on heat mat to grow them at the same time.

Tra La! Look at them go! Most of our babies are already coming up to say hello!

Questions on planting seeds? How are your seedlings coming?

How do we know when to plant?

Its time to start our seeds. How do we know that? Because some really smart people somewhere, (probably a bunch of old school farmers) figured out that the the world is made up of different climates and have different growing seasons, then they organized it for us. Thanks guys!

We are in zone 6. That means we can expect that the last time we'll see a freeze will be around April 15. We may still see flurries or a some frost on the ground, but nothing like our recent white death episode should strike again after April 15.

Which means... It's time! Brassica's were safe to plant indoors starting at the beginning of February and we can start seeding root veggies directly into the ground. So go ahead.. you plant those Beet seeds! Tell your Carrots how proud you are of them for this next journey of their lives and pop 'em in the ground!

I really like the calendar that Veggie Harvest put together for zone 6. Click the picture below to see their site. I use this guide often when I'm not sure when I'm not sure when the best time is to plant different veggies. I don't follow it exactly though. I start a lot of my cool weather crops indoors earlier than it suggests. Gardeners get to play by their own rules. ;)

Risky Quilt Gift

Quilts are not Risky. So why is this a risky gift?

Well its because there's actually no quilt involved yet. I've never quilted and I want to learn. Also, I want a handmade quilt to cozy up in! Preferably made by hands that love me. (Shout out to my Grandma Pat who made me one when I was little! It's beautiful, covered in butterflies and will one day keep my daughters warm at night.) Now I'm ready for a grown up quilt and one that I put my own back into. So how am I going to do it? I promised my mother in-law and sister in-laws I'd make them one! 

Here's how I devised this quilting plan:

 Rules:

1. draw names for who's quilt we'll start on first
2. Person whose name was drawn gives a brief description of style choice. (could be favorite colors or a theme.. Triangles, beach, eccentric, shades of blue, patterns, etc.)
• The idea is that you will have a quilt that represents you and the other three women that love you very much, so keep an open mind for them to be creative and express your theme in their own way.
3. Each person designs a 45"x50" rectangle and quilts it up. 
• You have 3 months to finish. It can be as simple or as detailed as you like.
4. After 3 months, we'll return our quilted rectangles and I'll have them put together to make one big queen size quilt. 
5. Ta Da! On to the next person.

Now lets break it down... 

Keep an eye open for our quilt progress! Do you have any quilt tips for beginners? We are all new to this other than Kim. She's a pro at everything. Do you have any other cool community quilt ideas or stories?

Have you been to the Fort Thomas Florist yet?

Today was "get ready to start planting indoor seeds day."

The main things I needed were potting soil and a new grow light. Everything else I plan on bootlegging. My mission: to get potting soil and grow lights. I've heard that Ft. Thomas florist is awesome, so I decided to check them out and see if they had the potting mix. I can confirm.. they are awesome.. and yes, they are a great source for potting mix.

They are also wonderful for.. FERNS! Oh my, I didn't realize how much I appreciated ferns until I was surrounded by them!

See how happy they were making me?

The ferns and flowers were hanging everywhere. The place is huge. Its huge and friendly and such a fun little plant adventure spot! They let me browse around undisturbed. It's very serene in there with a bunch of baby plants getting ready for their showdown in spring.

  
Oh my, flowers already? My little heart could hardly take it, I almost bought them out. Wes wouldn't mind right? He likes flowers.. Yikes, thats when I decided to get on with my mission: Potting soil! The people there were very helpful and nice.  They got me exactly what I needed. I wanted to stay and become friends with everyone, but you know, I was on a mission!

Here's my loot!

When you are starting plants from seed, its preferable to have new soil. These babies need all the help they can get. You want a light (light as in doesn't weigh very much) mix. Here's a basic recipe:

• compost
• perlite or vermiculite
• some sort of fertilizer (back at the farm we used blood meal, some seaweed stuff, and lime)
• peat moss

Ask your florist/garden supplier and they'll give you the right ratios. Usually it will all be bagged up and you don't even have to think about it. The Ft. Thomas Florist had a great bag of most of the stuff I wanted but it was too heavy so they suggested I buy something lightweight to mix it with. I bought Black Gold potting mix to lighten the stuff they gave me. Peat moss would have worked too.

http://www.fortthomasflorist.net
63 S. Grand Ave. Fort Thomas, KY 41075
(859) 441-8049
(866) 441-8049

Where did you buy your potting mix this year? Do you have any potting mix questions? Good luck with your seedlings garden friends!

Brassicas

Hooray Hoorah!

Its the beginning of February so its time to bust out your seed packets and start planting those Brassicas!
Wait... Brassi-whatas??

BRASSICA'S.

A genus of plants in the mustard family. This includes a long list of agricultural plants as well as some weeds. Brassica's are typically Spring and Fall crops.

Here's a list of familiar Brassica's that you can start planting. I put a star beside the ones I'm planting for my garden this week.

*Broccoli

*Broccoli raab (this is basically baby broccoli before it gets the green flowery part you're used to)

Brussels sprouts 

*Cabbages 

Calabrese 

*Cauliflower 

Chinese cabbage 

Collard greens 

*Kale 

*Kohl rabi 

Komatsuna 

Mibuna greens 

Mizuna greens 

Mooli/Daikon 

Swede 

Tatsoi 

Texsel greens

*Turnip 

What are you're Favorite Brassicas? Do you have any awesome recipes for these cool season gems? 

Winter Shopping!

Hooray! Now is the time to shop for seeds! This is seriously exciting. What do you want to eat next year? Do you want flowers for bouquets or borders? Oooooh! We are going to save so many food dollars this year! I primarily order plants online. You can find seed packets in stores in springtime, but then you won't get an exciting package on your doorstep.. Although, I shouldn't discount the wonders of a local garden store. You should actually try to find one in your area because you'll probably make some new friends there who can guide you in all sorts of wonderful garden ways.

These are my favorite online catalogs:
www.johnnyseeds.com
www.seedsavers.org

I met this guy Bill Best down in Berea, KY. He's really cool and his 'maters are amazing! I buy my heirloom tomatoes here:
www.heirlooms.org

I'll get back to you on the best local garden shops once spring rolls around. Maybe we can snag some hot deals!