We had some amazingly beautiful weather last weekend and my raised bed was ready to plant, so we set to work. I had started a bunch of different veggies from seeds, but despite my husbands insistence that 5 year old seeds were fine….not much grew (shocking).

I had new pepper and tomato seeds that did grow. But I kind of forgot that 1 seed = 1 plant and I totally overloaded my seed pods. So I separated them and replanted them in bigger pots.

They are doing okay, but I’m still not convinced they are going to get big enough to plant in time. I may hit the Seattle Tilth Edible Plant Sale this weekend to get some bigger plants.

So back to the raised bed. Here is what we planted.

We also did onions and garlic, but I forget to label them.

I honestly have no idea what I am doing, so I could have planted things that are wrong for our climate or planted them too early. I figure this year is mainly an experiment to see what grows.

I’ll add zucchini and yellow squash seeds to the raised bed in a couple weeks. We are planning on doing pumpkins outside the raised bed. And carrots in containers based on this tutorial.

I’m so excited to see what works and to start eating fresh veggies from our garden. My son has loved participating in this project and he always asks if we can go check on the garden.

How are your gardens growing?

This garden update could also be called ‘Why you should never build a raised bed on the top of a hill”!

Last weekend, we started clearing the area for a new raised vegetable garden. This weekend, my awesome husband finished clearing the area and framed out the raised bed. Our bed is 16 feet by 6 feet by 10 inches. I’m so excited to plan where to plant all my vegetable starts.

But before that can happen, the bed needs to be filled with dirt. Dirt that was located in the bed of our truck WAY down below the bed. Let me take you on a little tour of how we got the dirt up to the top.

We filled large plastic buckets with dirt and carried them two at a time.

Up this flight of stairs.

Then up the porch steps.

Then across the porch

Then up some more stairs.

Then across the muddy, slippery yard.

Then around the back of the house on a narrow, slippery path.

And finally, dump the containers into the bed.

Repeat 40 times. Seriously!

We did one yard of dirt today, but unfortunately it’s going to take about two more yards to finish the bed.

Who wants to come help?

Last year, I grew a mildly successful vegetable container garden (seen here and here), so this year I decided to expand my efforts. Thanks to recent efforts of my husband and our neighbor to take down some trees that were overhanging our homes, I have the perfect full sun location for a raised bed. Unfortunately, it’s at the top of a hill.

Even though I whined about the logistics of getting to the location, it really is ideal and I’m hoping to grow a successful crop of vegetables this year. We started clearing the area this weekend and my husband started framing the vegetable garden. It’s definitely going to take some work to get it ready to plant, but since I just planted my seed starts this weekend, we have a bit of time.

I used this pellet greenhouse for some of my seeds. My son thought watching the pellets “grow” when you add water to them was pretty cool. This tray has tomatoes, basil, red & walla walla onions, mint, and chives.

In this greenhouse I have a ton of different peppers (poblano, jalapeno, bell peppers).

I also have seeds for some things that go straight into the garden. Beets, pumpkins, zucchini, and yellow squash. What am I missing?

I’m hopeful that my seed starts will grow but since I’m a newbie at this, we’ll just have to wait and see. If they don’t grow, we have a great local nursery were I can pick up some plant starts.

Are you growing a vegetable garden this year? I’d love to hear how you are getting started and I hope you’ll follow me along this spring and summer.