Easter Weekend

I made the mistake of working quite a bit of overtime over Christmas and counting on being able to take off some ProD days with my kids early in 2020. That didn't happen, so by the time Spring Break rolled around, I was REALLY ready for a break.

Of course, COVID19 hit our area the same time as Spring Break did, so I didn't end up getting to take my vacation time then either.

So Easter weekend I determined I would not do any work and just enjoy the time off.

The last couple weekends for me have involved ripping out old, rotting garden beds; dealing with blackberry canes that have overgrown the rotten garden beds (we left them last summer so we could reap the bountiful harvest); and then pressure washing and cleaning up outside. Finally this weekend I was able to finish off the pressure washing and start hauling dirt.

I ordered 4 planters from Riverbend Planters and had them delivered as well as a big bag of veggie dirt from Burnco and a bunch of seeds from MacKenzie seeds and seed potatoes from Potters. In the age of Covid I'm really finding which companies support online shopping and home delivery or parking lot pick up. It's not something I really loved pre-covid but I love it now.

Here's what I planted:

I had planned on putting bush beans here, but I've read that beans and potatoes don't love each other, so I will likely be trying somewhere else. Because they're bush beans, I think I can plant them in containers. I was also going to put sunflower behind the corn because they pair well. But they don't pair well with potatoes (d'oh!) so I'll have to figure out where the sunflowers are going. I ripped out all my flowers from this bed so we would have the extra square footage for the potatoes and corn - with the exception of my peony plant and the lupin - oh and the vine you see there.

Every year I put red and white geraniums in this barrel. You're not really Swiss if you don't plant geraniums.

 This planter is on my balcony right outside the kitchen so I can grab the lettuce easily. I figure this is one crop I'll need to access frequently!

I have a garden plan - and once the peas are done, I'll put something else here - but I don't have my plan here to see what's going in next!

You can see I picked up some tomato plants (cherry and beefsteak). It's not quite warm enough overnight to put them outside yet, but my laundry room gets good sun, so they'll stay here for a while. In the little greenhouses I have two kinds of tomatoes (roma and cherry); butternut squash and 3 kinds of peppers (banana, mini bell and normal bell).

I'm planning to pick up a few more things once veggie plants are more available. I haven't had much luck growing squash from seed, so I'll probably buy some plants. As well I want more herbs (especially parsley - I need to make tabuleh!) so those will go in planters with the tomatoes or on their own. I'm planning on growing all the tomatoes and peppers in containers on the balcony. They did really well there in the past.

Finally! Andrew also built me some screens for growing squash horizontally.

What you don't see is that the animals already were in my planters so I had to cover them all with stiff netting. Hopefully I'll be able to order some flimsier netting that I can drape and lift as the plants grow, but for now this stuff is stapled on the boxes to keep raccoons, squirrels, crows and deer from eating my veggies!!