Here are the new pictures of our garden. It’s looking pretty luscious and a week ago we harvested our first round of chard and lettuce. So far there have been almost no weeds. We were only watering every 3 days or so until the recent heat wave. This method is excellent.

The Garden June 30, 2009

These guys will be ready soon

Squash

On Monday I planted the first run of plants in the garden. I cleared little patches in the straw and added a few handfuls of a top soil/potting soil mixture, this is what I planted in. After the garden was built, I watered it twice a day. I’ve now gone down to once a day. Hopefully, in a couple of weeks when the sprouts are a little bigger and healthier, we can start watering far less frequently. Here is the list of plants that I planted:

Cherry tomatoes- from sprouts
Early girl tomatoes- from small plants
Serrano chilies- from sprouts
Basil-from sprouts
Onion- from small sprouts
Garlic- from sprouted cloves
Ruby red chard- seeds
Rainbow chard- seeds
Sassy salad- seeds
Cilantro- seeds

And some pictures:

Left half of the garden

Early Girls

Early Girl in the garden

Last weekend we (Elliott, Steven, and I) built our no-dig garden in our front yard. This technique, which you can learn more about here and here, is a method which uses less water, no chemical fertilizers or pesticides, and maintains the natural balance and integrity of the native soil. Basically, you plant above ground in layers of alfalfa hay (also known as Lucerne hay) and rich soil/manure/compost, with a layer of straw on top and soggy cardboard on the bottom. The top layer of straw keeps in the moisture and warmth, as well as prevents weeds from growing. The alfalfa will breakdown and to enrich the soil layer. The cardboard will help retain water. Here’s how we did ours: