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| Chive Beds and New Raised Bed. 2.10.16 |
The 2 raised beds of garlic chives broke dormacy last week, now 2 to 2 inches of growth.
I priced these concrete blocks today at Home Depot. They were 99 cents each. I think they are less expensive than the wooden beds, will last longer, and are easier to assemble. I don't know about thermal properties. The corners have openings that would be good for posts.
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| Garlic Chives. 2.10.16 |
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| Chives. 2.10.15 |
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| Garlic Raised Bed. 2.10.16 |
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| Egyptian Walking Onions. 2.10.16 |
Garlic is showing great growth. My subjective estimate is the garlic in the raised bed is about twice as big as the garlic in the ground, probably due to warmer temperature although the soil mix could also be better.
Egyptian Walking Onions are also growing nicely. I protected them from deer and rabbits this year. There was still evidence of something foraging - maybe slugs.
Not shown, the new starts of White Potato Onions are about 6 inches tall. This time around they are also protected from herbivores. There is no evidence of foraging on those plants.
I'm not concerned about potential frost or freeze. These are hardy plants.
This displays your strategy very clearly. I like the wood boxes and the concrete block ones. It looks as though you have built your soil, as carefully as you selected your plants. Do you water them with a soaker hose, overhead sprinkling, or ?
ReplyDeleteJoan, the watering is still by hand. Our well brings up so much sediment, I think soaker hoses would clog too fast. I do mulch to hold in moisture, but the actuall watering is with a hose.
ReplyDeleteIn principle, the wooden boxes might be more environmentally friendly because wood is renewable. But the blocks might be cheaper - at Home Depot, 99cents per block, no corners or screws needed. The blocks are easier to assemble. Many if not most of these are reused from other purposes, so are recycled.
The soil really shows the efforts of the past few years. Digging into it now is almost like cutting into a Duncan Hines devil's food chocolate cake. The main deficiency from the soil test was calcium. Sometimes I add lime, to bring up pH, but mostly I add crushed eggshells - the white chunks on the surface. They will disappear fairly fast once Spring is here.