Raised beds & the reason he's MY man!

My husband did a wonderful, self-less sweet thing for me this year. Some women want jewels and candy, I'm just not that kinda gal. He picked up the scrap wood from a job site. I can't believe the waste of cutting off 2" of a 2x4 then throwing it into the burn pile because it's cheaper to buy new wood (and charge the customers for it) then bring your "leftover" wood from one job-site to another. Good reasons for paying attention to what your contractors are charging you for!

Over the course of two evenings, my husband created 2 4'x4' boxes, one for cauliflower and one for peppers. Then 2 4'x3' U-shapes for each end to plant peas & cherry tomatoes on the fence. Then 3 13'x3' boxes for the rest of my vegetables. He's also built me a new compost out of a few skids with extra boards throw in (I've got the fanciest looking compost in town!). There is also an old pipe-fittings box that is just perfect for my potatoes. For March in Ottawa, it is completely unheard of that we would have no snow! We got a huge jump on the backyard work, especially the vegetable garden. There has even been talk of a white picket fence to keep the dogs out.

The best part of raised-beds is how easy it is to segment the work for each day. As I've turned the soil and prepped my beds I've been able to pick a few feet of whichever bed I'm working on to concentrate on for that day. Much easier when I've got two little babes running around to watch. With all the rain we have had the last two years it also creates a system that will allow the beds to drain; so hopefully I won't see all my tomatoes develop Blossom End Rot and all my onions drown like last year.

I was impatient and planted out my cauliflower seedlings. I'm covering them at night, but I have no idea if they will live or not. Perhaps the warm weather is making me too optimistic, but if I can get a big enough jump on them, I might just get two crops of cauliflower in, so to me, it's worth the risk. I'm waiting to finish my beds for when the farmer brings us a few loads of old cow-manure for my beds, I'm going to be growing huge veggies this year! I'll just side-dress the cauliflower when the time comes.