It's Not a Vineyard...

• Who can find a virtuous woman? her price is far above rubies
• She considereth a field...with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard

One of the things I was looking forward to doing when I found I was going to be moving home and actually living in our house full-time, was having a garden, however small, and maybe a few flowers. We've had an extremely hot and dry summer and fall, can you tell? The grass has been dead for weeks, and even the trees are gasping for water these days. And even though it was too hot, too dry, and too late, I decided I wanted to try, anyway. I needed something on a small scale that I could take care of myself, since I'd be "home alone" most of the time.

And even though I've never done raised bed gardening, or even knew anyone who did raised bed gardening, I decided that a raised bed would be just the thing. While they were home, hubby bolted together the boards for me, and my son helped me fill it with dirt, and voila', a raised bed garden was born!

These are my carrots--planted last of the seeds, they're only 3-4 weeks old. They need thinning soon, but I can't bring myself to do it yet--I love the fuzzy green tops, and I don't want to pull any out yet!

This is bibb lettuce, the only thing planted from actually plants instead of seeds. It's coming along slowly but surely.


Swiss chard--I loved the way you could see the red stems even on the tiny little shoots that pushed through the dirt. This is another first timer for me--I love the colors!

These are yellow squash, seeds from my dad that he had left from his summer garden--they are the stars of the garden, planted 4-5 weeks ago, they came up first and are taking over their little square.

And can you see the little onion tops? They are another slow-but-sure one. I have a couple of bare dirt squares where I planted chamomile and rosemary, but they failed to germinate, I guess, because I got a big fat nothin' from them!

I'm not sure if I'll get a harvest or not--depending on the weather--so far we've had a only a couple of days of cool weather, most of the time day time temps are still in the 80's. Last year was a really cold one for this area, but some years we barely get a frost, much less a freeze, so I'm holding out hope that I might at least get a salad out of it! Meantime, I'm enjoying watching it grow, and hoping to be ready for something bigger in the spring.

This post is linked to:

Tuesday Garden Party at An Oregon Cottage

Outdoor Wednesday at A Southern Daydreamer

Works for Me Wednesday at We are THAT Family

Until next time...