raise it up

CIMG2291
Originally uploaded by ingroid.

So the indoor seedlings are progressing, in the meantime though I've been waiting out the days until I can start planting stuff. Last frost date in the south Seattle area seems to be March 24. But then I just checked and there's this thing called a "safe date" which is of course much later (April 20, geez!). Not sure if I can wait that long.

So I got the soil prepared. I'm doing raised beds this year. I figure this will be easier on my arm, and will allow me to do as much or as little weeding/digging in the rest of the yard as I like, while still getting some sort of harvest. I'm using the square-foot gardening book as my guide.

I bought some wood and had them cut it at the store to the right length. Then I drilled holes in it and made them into squares. I put down weed fabric so I don't even have to do any tilling or anything (phew!).

Then I mixed up compost, vermiculite and peat moss in equal parts:



Mmm, delicious loamy soil. I ran out of vermiculite for the second box, and home depot has a ginormous bag of perlite, so for the second box I used perlite instead of vermiculite. Shouldn't be too big of a deal, methinks.

Here is the end product:



Now, I've got to say, sometimes you only think of things as you go along. Well, as I was mixing up and then shoveling this rich, delicious soil into these boxes, I had visions in my head of plentiful, juicy tomatoes, spicy arugula and delicious basil and such.

Meanwhile, Rama (my cat) was literally circling like a shark, eyeing this soil with something very different in mind. Fortunately it started raining right as I was finishing up, so he went inside. That same day I got some bird netting to keep him (and any other critters) out. To answer Rama, no, these are not giant cat boxes built just for you. Nice try, though, my dear sweet Rama.