Spring Container Garden 2013

Last year's garden

The biggest benefit to having a waist-high garden is how early the soil heats up for planting. Unfortunately, that still doesn't solve the problem of having super-short springs and a rapid plunge into hot, sweltering, weather. Here in North Carolina, it has taken me some time to figure out the gardening limitations and enjoying both a spring and summer garden is out. The summer garden must be started no later than April for healthy crops. Gone are the spring-summer-fall gardens of my Virginia life. Of course, the timing couldn't be better. I am, after all, in my later years and it's enough to enjoy what I can do and simply reminisce years gone by.

In its seventh year, the garden needed to be revitalized and so I did the Lasagna Garden thing and added a top layering mid-February. Look at how beautiful the soil is almost nine inches down!

These are this year's 'birthing sheets' waiting for placement. I've combined fertilizer with the flour paste to hold the sheets together. Decided to use the 'broadcast' (rather than precise) method because the thinnings will be used in salads, leaving the proper spacing for the rest to grow into vegetables.

Here they are in place, dampened down to prevent the wind from moving them around while waiting for the soil cover.

Now, you see them; now, you don't!

Seeds and plants are in place.

Think I'll just sit here in the shade, with knife and fork in hand, waiting . . .   Why don't you pull up a chair and join me?