This year's raised garden beds

After a New England weekend of rain, heavy winds and (almost) freezing cold weather...they got snow in Vermont!!...Memorial Day was sunny and warm and I was able to plant my vegetables in our raised garden beds.  (You can check out last week's post to see how we installed them 2 years ago.) After doing some weeding, I added a bag of organic hummus & manure to three of the boxes to bring the soil levels up.  The fourth box has our strawberry plants that return each year.

I mixed in some vermiculite, then leveled it out.



Next I ran the string lines to define the 12 inch squares.  Into each square goes one type of plant.  The plants in the picture above are my lavender...I had four plants, but one of them didn't make it through the winter. :-(



Now comes the fun part...deciding where the plants will go!  This year I put in...

cucumbers (shown above), zucchini and yellow squash

These I plant next to the trellis so that they can grow UP instead of ALL OVER the bed (I learnt that the first year!)

 

 

Red peppers

 



Green beans

 

 

Tomatoes- I planted several different varieties,

some heirlooms and cherry tomatoes.  Marigolds planted near the tomato

plants keep pests away.

 





 

Fresh herbs from your garden are the best!  This lemon thyme smells delicious!

 

 

I tuck the cilantro (above) and parsley in between the larger plants

to provide them with some shade.  I found the cilantro in particular

doesn't do well when it's baking in the sun all day long. I also planted lots

of basil- pesto anyone? 

 

 

What a surprise...these tomato plants came up from seeds that dropped last summer. 

I will thin them out next week.  The broccoli is just about ready.

 

 

I had a few empty squares, so I added some cosmos and

planted nasturtium and zinnia seeds...perfect for cut flowers!

 

So there you have it...our veggie gardens for the summer of 2013.

What did you plant?