Garden Update
On May 23, 2012 by Lucy
This year, instead of buying potting soil, we made our own by mixing top soil and our compost. We have excellent soil in the backyard and you can’t dig up a plant without having a worm hanging on to it. I read that potting soil had a lot of chemicals that were harmful to worms so we decided to go a more ecological route. I was fearful at first because I’ve only had experience using store bought soil but with our thriving garden, I am now a believer.
I had to make something to support the tomatoes so I used the PVC pipe that Andy made to hold up the raised bed’s tarp in case of inclement weather to fashion a trellis.
I also used bamboo sticks to make a trellis for the peas too. Let’s hope both trellises hold up.
I’ve been using the herbs a lot and they probably have paid for half of the cost of the garden already. But my biggest discovery is that I really like swiss chard.
I grew it for mostly ornamental reasons but my friend Britt told me to cook them with heavy cream and they were heavenly. I also added garlic and leek from the garden and bacon and it was just perfect over some pasta.
Yeah, plants are only this green for a week or two in TX, then it’s a summer-long battle to keep them moist, and then winter-long catch-up to not let flash frost take them.