Spring Gardening

Spring weather has come to Nashville!

I could shout it from the rooftops. The temperature was in the 70s all weekend, and we spent the majority of our time outdoors. We played outside all morning, and then Chris and I came up with a new location for our spring garden that just might work out. We spent Saturday afternoon clothes shopping and started working on a plan.

On Sunday after church we went to Home Depot for supplies. Mackenzie had fun picking out seed packets and plants. She said, “I pick them!”

Chris and I got to work during Mackenzie’s nap. It came together fast!

First we built the box. We prefer raised garden beds for a lot of reasons. In this case it will help us improve the soil beneath — primarily clay and dumped on with who knows what. A raised bed gives our garden a fresh start and is good for the soil below it. We used 3 2x10x8 untreated boards to build a 4×8 box.

I follow the “lasagna” method with our raised garden beds, so our next step was created a barrier between the current soil and our “new soil.” We lined the bottom of the box with cardboard boxes. We used the boxes from last month’s Honest.com shipment – thought they’d get a kick out of that. The cardboard will break down over time.

Then we added leaf mulch, mushroom compost, and organic garden soil. The compost will break down the leaf mulch and eventually the cardboard, creating a rich soil bed. I was amazed at how well this technique worked in our Conway garden, and I’m excited to see the results with this new plot here in Nashville.

After that, it was time to plant!

We planted nasturtiums against a simple mesh trellis against the wall, and buttercrunch bibb lettuce and marigolds next to that.
 

We filled the rest of the bed with two bell pepper plants, two sweet basil plants, three tomato plants, two gerbera daisies, and a sweet pea trellis down the middle.

We have one unfilled spot — hopefully for an heirloom tomato seedling if our seedlings do well!

We finished the bed off with untreated hardwood mulch and two colorful tomato cages — chosen by Mackenzie, of course. She helped us water everything when we were finished.

We also replanted most of the front garden bed as well. We put in chocolate mint, sweet mint, rosemary, and geraniums, and we replanted a surviving apple mint plant.

 

I’m especially excited about the strawberry plants we planted in a vintage cola box. It will be interesting to see how they turn out!

Are you planting a garden this year? If so, I’d love to see it. Please leave a link in the comments!