I’m not sure where the sun disappeared to today. The forecast was calling for a nice spring day with temps in the low 60’s (15°C.) It was about 50 and overcast instead, but at least there was no rain.
We got the day started with a trip to Hagebau, the little home improvement store down the street. We had the idea of using metal mounting tape (often used by plumbers and our electrician) for our cold frame mounts. The mounts will be used to hold the cold frames in place over the beds instead of us needing to build a frame around the bottom of the tunnel or dig it into the ground. We used metal brackets before to mount the PVC pipe to the insides of the raised beds before but this way is easier and much cheaper. One of those smart little ideas that Stefan came up with the other day.
We also needed to pick up some soil because we started the filling process of two of our raised beds today. We picked up 400 liters of soil which allowed us to finish one bed and get started on a second. We’re probably going to need another 400 liters to finish all the beds but we might manage to pull that off tomorrow. Although most stores are not open on Sundays here in Germany, there is a fabulous garden center in Frankfurt that has managed to get around the rules by having a restaurant. So we’re going to wander around in there for a while tomorrow and see what kind of trouble we can find.
We’ve had a few ideas about what to use for the container garden that we plan to start in our courtyard. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this yet but we have decided to extend our growing area by building planters in our courtyard to grow lettuce, herbs and anything else that strikes our fancy. The beds will need to be high enough that Ayla can’t dig in them so that limits a few of our options. We’re currently thinking about using 3cm thick untreated boards like we used for our raised beds to construct them. But today while we were out walking Ayla we noticed some fence timbers that would also work really well. So we’ll be checking out our options at the garden center tomorrow. It’s mostly going to come down to a matter of price.
We’re also getting ideas for the walkways and the borders around the edge of the garden. We saw some nice concrete borders today that are about 4 feet long and a little over a foot tall. They would be fairly cheap and should look really nice. They would also last just about forever which is a nice plus. A huge pile of gravel also inspired us as we thought about the paths between the beds and around the garden. Gravel may not look as fancy as granite chips or river rock, but it will be a whole lot cheaper and this is a functional garden, not a museum.
Things are really starting to come together back there and we’re getting really excited and inspired. We’re both pretty worn out this evening but we know it’s all going to be worth it come harvest time. And at least we won’t need to put this much prep work into the garden after all this. We’re even thinking about planting our first seeds in the garden tomorrow – carrots. We should have a nice little video update of all our progress tomorrow including some new photos of our seedlings which are exploding.
How’s your weekend going? Have you started your garden work yet?
