Garden Markers

You may have noticed the cute plant markers in some of our recent pics.  These are so cute and easy to make!  Not only will you know what seeds you have planted but they add some color and whimsy to your garden.  We took paint stir sticks (free at Home Depot or Lowes) gave them a coat of paint and used a sharpie to write the plant names.  That's it!  They are sturdy enough to last the season and are tall enough to be seen amongst the tall tomatoes and zucchinis.

Here is a close up pic of our radish sign.

Our Terraced Garden

Ok, so this is part 3 of our series on terraced gardening.  In this post we wanted to show how we have used our terraced garden to plant our community victory garden.  As you have read earlier we have only planted peas, lettuce, arugula, garlic, onions, swiss chard, fava beans and potatoes so far.  Many things have already sprouted! The rest of the plants have been started in a greenhouse and are kept warm at night with a heating pad.  They are doing beautifully and will be ready to put into the ground as early as April (if the weather cooperates)

Here is the link to a drawing of our garden and the plants we are growing http://www.hiddenvalleyspa.com/images/garden2011.jpg.

Sorry about the blurry pics but you get the idea, stuff is growing!

Arugula

Strawberry

Peas

Radishes

Our Victory Garden 2011

Life up at Hidden Valley has been keeping us very busy. We just cleared six tiers in preparation for our new garden. As you might remember we were pretty successful last year with our organic vegetable garden,  and we have decided to expand on this. We are planning on taking advantage of our long growing season and Mediterranean climate by starting our garden early with peas, fava beans, garlic and Italian Chicory. Same as last year we cleared it by hand, but were introduced to a Hula Hoe. Makes weeding easier. We cleared it in half the time. We built our bean poles. We'll show you a picture next week. Hope you can make it out to visit us and enjoy some of natures best organic vegetables.

Our Veggie Garden!

Now that the rain and cold has finally passed, it is now time to put in our summer vegetable garden. Putting in a garden takes a little more time and energy but the results are well worth it. Since we do everyting organic and made by hand, we got into action. First we turned the soil and pulled any big weeds. Then we needed to prepare the beds for the seeds. We planted zucchini, squash, 4 types of tomatoes, pole beans, snap beans, corn, watermelon, canteloupe, cucumber, celery, asparagus, strawberries, and basil. Yum! As things begin to come up I will be posting more pictures.