We have sprouts!

Growing has commenced...

What is growing you ask?  

Purple Pole Beans, Snap Bush Beans, Cherry Tomatoes, Amish Tomatoes, Salsa Tomatoes, Romaine Lettuce, Cilantro, Parsley, Dill, Sage, and Sweet Peppers. We chose to sow these seeds by following the Backyard Harvest book I mentioned last post.  (http://amzn.com/0756671639) Next month we will sow more plant seeds suggested by the book. 

Now all we have to do is finish getting the beds ready. We are borrowing a tiller from a friend of ours so we can make sure the soil is all nice and airy. The beds will get a bag of Black Kow dirt (I know this is not organic and may contain some GMO residuals from any corn they were feed), I am still looking for a source of clean poop. The soil is sandy here and the Black Kow really helps the plants that like a little more nutrient dense dirt. The beds also will get a bag of organic gardening soil. Then my lovely spouse will dig some more dirt out of the swamp if we need it. Hopefully without ants in it! We had an ant problem last year....but we will talk about pests in my next post. 

This post is about how I have been procrastinating about getting the raised beds and pots ready for the plants that are so beautifully doing their job and sprouting. Being pregnant has really slowed me down this year especially with the Little Boy running circles around me. 

In two of the raised beds, you may have noticed that there are already some plants growing. In the first one we have asparagus, and in the second we have two strawberry plants. 

The Strawberry plants are doing great! They have tons of blooms and baby fruit. Only problem is we have a raccoon problem! What do you recommend for getting rid of raccoons? My husband says that we have to kill one and hang it's tail on the fence. Nice, huh? I want to make a fence for the raised bed any way to help keep out other unwanted creatures.  Robert (my husband) says that the raccoons are too strong and will break through the fence any way. So, I guess there might be hunting in my future. :(.....

The photo to the right shows the asparagus plants. Only one of the four crowns seems to be producing right now. I am going to give them a little more time before I dig them up and start over. Asparagus is suppose to be really easy to grow. All the YouTube videos and Pinterest pages I pinned said so! (http://bonnieplants.com/growing/growing-asparagus/ for example). Welcome to my world of gardening! Ha! It never seems to turn out how they say! Oh well. They still have some time to prove themselves. 

...And speaking of things blooming that are easy to grow, here are a couple of pictures of our recently moved Meyer Lemon Tree. 

Meyer Lemon Trees are suppose to be very easy to grow here in the Sunshine State, I guess very easy is a relative term. We put it in a beautiful pot my mom bought, and it did produce fruit. The tree later on became unhealthy. Probably my fault. So that is why we moved it. As you can see in the picture below, there are tons of blooms on it. I even captured a bee in the photo pollinating it for me! Bees are great, no, they are essential for a good garden!          

More on bees next time. Time to go dig in the dirt!