Hard Work, and the Rewards

What a weekend of hard work at the Noe Farm. Brad worked so hard he may have actually thrown his back out. And it's no surprise, because we brought in a half wine barrel, 12 cubic feet of soil, lumber for 2 new raised beds, lots of flowers, and more; then he dug through the hard clay soil to make a giant hole for our new raised bed; and then he filled it up with said soil and we planted.

Between our visit to the nursery and Home Depot, and our work Saturday evening and all day Sunday, our entire weekend was about gardening. And it was awesome. We had 70+ degree weather and full sun the whole time. It was hard to go back into an office today after so much time outdoors.

One of our projects for the weekend, perhaps the most delicious one, was to thin out our arugula. We might have been overzealous with the seeds, so we had what amounted to "arugula grass" that would never grown into big, leafy arugula as packed in as it was. I wasn't sure if I should really thin all the way down to 1 little stem every 6", so I started with little clumps every 4". I suppose we will thin again if the arugula doesn't start growing more.



The great thing about arugula is that you can keep planting on a rotation, so I put some new seeds in the ground. The even better thing about arugula is that you can eat the thinnings! So we had some absolutely delicious microgreens from our garden. They were spicy and fresh and the sort of delicious you can only get from growing it yourself

Arugula, before and after:




Our microgreens, up close:




Not a bad crop for only 4 weeks of growth:




The bigger project, of course, was the new raised bed. We decided to build 2 4'x4' beds so that we could walk between them. After a day in our yard though, we realized that the second one would never get any sun. So we are holding off on bed number 3 until we can find some good plants which can grow well without direct sun.

We took this big project on because (1) we simply ran out of room in the other bed, and still had seeds we wanted to plant, and (2) because we're so lucky to have a yard in San Francisco, it seems like such a waste not to use more of it.

The new bed, in all its glory:



We planted nasturtiums (edible flowers), cucumbers, radishes, and will plant some potatoes as well. We also bought some Cosmos and Yarrow, waiting to be potted, to attract "good bugs":




We read (link to follow) about putting a plastic pot (with holes) into the ground with your squash all around it for evenly distributed watering. Who knows. It certainly looks cool, so we're pleased:




One half of the Noe Farm duo:



We also did some landscaping at the front of the house but our camera (left overnight in the rain) isn't giving us great shots so we'll have to post that later. We have certainly given ourselves some serious work to do, and come harvest we're hoping to be up to our ears in produce. A good problem to have!