Urban Farm {May}

Hello friends!!

Life is moving right along here at our Urban Oasis! Our last farm update brought you the birth of our two raised bed gardens.

Since then, we have fully planted one of the beds, and the other is about half planted. Since we divided the beds into square foot increments, we are able to fit many veggies in in an organized manner.

 

We labeled each section with a rock with the plant name written on it, as you can see here with the peas. 

 

Did you know peas are a cool weather crop, and can be started outdoors as early as March?! They are considered snap peas if you harvest earlier, and sugar peas if its a later crop. Peas are easy to grow and heavy producers, and you can freeze your harvest! Holla for filling the freezer with home grown goodness! 

Here is a look at Bed #1, fully planted and labeled for your viewing pleasure. 

 

 We will likely be doubling up some of these veggies in the other bed, carrots for sure, since we will go through a lot of those. 

I'm sure you've noticed and are wondering about the PVC hoops on the beds. If you follow me on Instagram (@lololalala), then you've seen the progress on what are now hoop houses. We installed these hoops, and sewed plastic covers for the beds to extend our growing season and protect our crop from both the unpredictable weather here in Bend, and our fruit bat pit-mix puppy, Cash. So far so good as well! As you can see from the photo above,  if you squint, all of our starts have sprouted!! 

In the other bed, we have planted two types of heirloom tomatoes, which we bought at a local garden store, Zucchini, Tuscan Kale, and more peas. I will definitely be putting in more carrots, and maybe some broccoli and arugula. 

I am loving the gardens so far, and spend at least 30 minutes a day tending to them, and our herb garden in the front yard. You may remember our successes of years past with this built in planter box. Last year we decided to take all the plants out of it and put in an herb garden! Best idea ever!! It worked fabulously and is easily accessible when cooking! Herbs are very easy to grow and quite expensive at the grocery store, so I highly recommend growing your own! 

Here's what we have growing so far. The Tarragon, Thyme and Rosemary all survived the winter and returned for 2013, and the Cilantro, Parsley and Mint are new additions as of a few weeks ago. We will be putting some Basil in soon as well, but for now we have a thriving basil plant (for 3.99 from Trader Joe's, get one, best purchase ever) indoors so we aren't missing out in the basil department. 

We will close this post with some hilarious pics of our pets, my constant garden companions. 

 

Here is our cat Zeke defying gravity by running DOWN the fence... 

 And here is our fruit bat Cash, investigating the plastic cover of one of the hoop houses. He is quite the trouble maker, but overall a fantastic dog. 

So that's where we stand so far on the Urban Farm. Its still early, but I am feeling confident that we will get a decent crop this year! Any tips or garden advice, especially on growing tomatoes? That is the one plant I am most intimidated by. 

Speak up in the comments!