This Year's Spring Garden

While Peggy cleaned, bagged, sliced and prepared 22 lbs of carrots for the freezer, I started spading and raking our square foot garden for the Spring planting. Our neighbor, Ramsey stopped by, so his dog Rosco could visit with our bratty Bichons; they are very welcome guests, the both of 'em. We visited while I shoveled and then I "Tom Sawyer'd" Ramsey into putting those big "guns" of his to work toting garden soil to add to the garden. Every 2 or 3 years we add some good Miracle Grow garden soil to kinda perk up our garden. The rest of the time we just sprinkle on some 13-13-13 and a sack or 2 of cow manure and keep planting. Our lil garden goes year round so we gotta keep the soil rich for all the goodies we grow.


Besides our garden 'big' garden, we have 3-4ftx4ft planter boxes. Two of which we put in last week , the day I got off the boat. The one farthest away in this picture is Peg's herb garden. The tall flowering stuff is dill weed and she also has horseradish, parsley, green onions, and oregano. The new box in the middle will be asparagus, and the closest one is a strawberry patch. They are all under Spring "construction".

In this next Picture Peggy and I were "stringing our gardens" for their planting. In the Square foot gardening system that we use, we make a grid with string to help us plant evenly. An added advantage to the string is that kitties don't like it and refrain from using our garden for gigantic litter boxes.

Then we planted everything in the grids according to our plan. In this picture I am planting okra in the middle of the garden, as photographer Peggy plants bush green beans along the outer edge.

With the 'big' garden planted, we went on to plant the asparagus ferns. Peggy untangled them from the bundle they came in while me and my ever-present garden helper planted them.

Any time I'm doing anything in the yard good ole Sparky Bear is always underfoot willing to lend a paw , or tongue to encourage ya along. He is definitely our outside helper dog. From gardening to BBQin', to just chillin' on the patio or around the fire-pit, Sparky is always on the scene.

Well, once it was all said and done, I must say our lil gardens look pretty good. It's a very rewarding hobby. Peggy and I always excidedly await the gardens growing and giggle with delight as each thing succeeds, and we fret and worry 'til they do. We gotta stay on our toes, too, now that we have turned our Forum friend David onto this garden technique. Now that he is gardening away, it keeps us on our toes to try to keep up with him. It seems the student has now become the master.



You will notice in the earlier pictures that our chubby pup MarkyBear was absent. Yard work aint his forte. He is more a couch potato preferring the air conditioner, to the sunny yard, but once I had showered and settled down into my recliner, then my lil chubby buddy was more than happy to join his ole pop in a rest and a beer.

If ya aint never seen a dog smile just look up. After the first sip of my beer I am smilin' too.