Garden Talks - April 2021 Garden

Welcome to the garden update for April 2021 — I figured even though the garden is not. done, and as this is being written we are closing in on mid-may, let’s wind it back to April. It was also a month where I had my CSA flowers (since our garden wasn’t established yet) so there’s a lot of photos of these in my phone currently. Enjoy!

Making the Raised Bed Garden

First up, we have the project of making the raised bed garden, on a slope. and we wanted to remove the grass/level the land. Of course we decided to jump in and just go for it, vs. rent a sod remover and tiller. Mistake lol, but this did allow us to get into it at a slow pace, and it was a cold spring so it was fine.

First we placed the beds, and dug them in to level them, and removed the grass from the center, placed cardboard on the bottom as our first step. Then we got a nice big pile of garden bed soil (compost + sand + top soil) to fill the beds.

Then we got the hardy things planted - mostly flowers! We will show more when it’s something other than a seedling ;) You can see we then started the paths, slayed our landscaping fabric and started to fill the third bed with warmer veg.

Then we started in on the tough part. The front north facing garden. We removed all the old plants, and moved some, had to keep the yarrow! And added the soil and dug over, we are attempting to help amend the clay soil in this bed.

Everything grew well on the Southern exposure of the balcony garden at my apartment, and even had a friend stop by.

Then we went and bought MORE plants. Above on you see our haul from Annie’s Annuals - a great nursery in Berkley CA that we ordered some fun unusual plants, and below this garden center was an hour away but worth the drive — out in Franklin, TN.

We took a trip to Louisville, KY just a short trip north from Nashville. The arboretum there was quite spectacular and well taken care of. It was — chef’s kiss — great. They have an install with these giants, which made the lunch stop on our way into our vacation weekend really fun.

A few more photos of those gorgeous CSA flowers …

And good news is that the first strawberry bloom opened up in April, so we are on the right track!

Stay tuned for May updates, where we are already on the way to finishing up everything. We are on schedule to get everything finished, mulched and planted in the next week (it’s may 12th) so May update will be a big one!