The Plants

So after we got the soil ready, Mr. J built some raised beds for me and we filled them with compost and topsoil. And it looked like this:

We went to the Fullerton Arboretum and bought some tomatoes, then to Lowe's for the rest (strawberries, squash, swiss chard, onion, okra, and peppers). I tried to give myself a better chance by buying most of the rest as healthy plants. We'll see if it works.

NOTE: It is integral to make sure you have a trusty wagon to help in the planting process. I'm pretty sure all the experts say this...somewhere....probably.

So then we planted the plants and seeds in the raised beds and viola!

It looks promising here doesn't it? Sadly it didn't staying looking like this. Some stuff is holding up alright. Some stuff ahem, cough, cough*Amish Paste tomatoes, squash, and Julia Child tomatoes* are not. I'll keep you updated.

I remember hearing once that the prerequisite to having a pet is to have a plant and make sure you don't kill it. Then you move on to a dog or cat and if you don't kill that you can have a kid. Let's just say, I may be destined to aunt-hood for the rest of my life. Things might just be better that way. At least I can't seriously damage anyone...I hope. I promise not to over-water my nieces and nephew, well I might over-water them with loooove *wink*.

I wanted to show you the detail of our raised beds. The tutorial we watched suggested laying down wood chips between the beds, but we didn't have any. We did have some bricks that the previous owners left behind, and we did have rocks (that I had sifted out in the previous post). And we did this with them

And this

And this

If nothing else, at least I made it look pretty, so maybe these plants will want to stick around and bask in this luxurious place. Wouldn't you?