It doesn't help that I want to re-configure (Again. My husband inserts) the location and set up of my greenhouses. While the weather is still trying to decide what it's going to be every 15 minutes, it's a good time to move things around and get the raised beds ready for planting. Here's the final set up:
We joined our two old green houses together. Set raised beds along the south facing wall of the green houses. Moved the vertical bean garden and herb garden to form a boundary between garden and dog yard(still negotiating with dogs on that one as you can see.)
Next step is mixing up soil for lots of 5 gal. buckets. This is a big change. I have been growing my tomatoes and peppers in the black tray tubs pictured in the first photo. There was a lot of wasted space trying to fit the trays into the foot print of the greenhouses. I figured out I could get more plants into the same space by going with buckets. The only drawback is creating all the new soil because I make and mix all of my own. Enter one of the best tools in my garden:
Yep. I have a little cement mixer that has never seen a speck of concrete inside it's drum. This is a trick I learned from a commercial green house I worked at for several years. The owner used one of these to mix up all of his potting soil.
It took a couple of days to mix and fill all of the buckets I needed for tomatoes and peppers but now that they are filled, I can rotate them out for other plants and just have to fold in some new compost and supplements in the years to come.
Here's a tip on finding buckets if you plan to try growing in containers-check with your local recycle location. Ours is more than happy to save kitty litter buckets for us free of charge. The square buckets utilize space better. I sweeten the deal by dropping off extra zucchini and tomatoes to the gentleman who runs the center during the summer.
It's finally warm enough to send the children out to play in the back yard...
Yes, they look a little bedraggled and no, there is not enough soil in the bucket but this is where Garden Triage kicks in--the tomatoes are transplanted, in the green house and I can fill in the rest of the soil later!
