Growing plants

I find growing plants to be a wonderfully satisfying endeavor -- from vegetables to natives. It makes a difference for me, to feel like I'm restoring habitat and growing food.

I was reminded looking at some past photos, about the growth we've had in our raised beds here in the mountains.

I guess the raised beds are really 'mine', but we both built the beds, and both of us filled them with compost! Not an insignificant thing.

Everything is growing well, and I (ruthlessly) pruned the very robust tomatoes, and hopefully trained them up through the tomato cages or supports with ties, in some sort of proper manner this afternoon.

Hmm, I've not trained (or pruned) tomatoes before, but I know it's a good practice.

Check out some of the videos online (Fine Gardening and Johnny's Seeds) have nice ones.

More raised beds, lettuce, mesclun, and radishes

The two raised beds below the house turned into three, with 'leftover' stone and soil. The third is just to the right of the deck, barely visible in this photo.

The view from above.

And from below.

I tucked the rest of the leek seedlings and lettuce into one bed, and sowed mesclun mix, radishes, and arugula in another.

They're placeholder crops, and probably won't amount to much without frequent watering. There isn't rain in the forecast this week, so I hope that the rich organic soil will hold moisture well. But experiments are fun.