Picked up all the various starts at the Tilth Alliance May Sale on Thursday -- which was vastly different this year, due to the coronavirus. No shopping in person. Instead, everyone shopped online, put in their orders, and chose a date to pick up their orders.

I did my usual and volunteered with Tilth. It's one of the things I really enjoy doing in the spring, and even though the sale was different this year, I still enjoyed it. I was supposed to be a plant packer -- taking someone's paper order and packing all the plants in that order. Instead, I started out as a loader -- pulling the packed orders and setting them out to be picked up -- along with Kieran, my middle son, who was volunteering (voluntold?) with me.

Then I was switched to order checking, which could be quite intense. The small orders were easy; but orders with 2 or more flats got increasingly complex. I even got to watch someone pack my order, and then another person check my order.

So Thursday the plants came home. Thursday evening I took an online class with Tilth on drip irrigation systems . . . the next project!

Friday, most of the plants went in: tomatoes, peppers, summer and winter squash, broccoli, kale, collard greens, kohlrabi, lettuce, braising greens and spicy salad mixes, mustard, and chard. In the process, I got a wicked sunburn.

Saturday I put in the beets, which was all I could stand to do in the heat, especially with Friday's sunburn.

Sunday was onion day. Onions are always a lot of work: first I have to separate them, which is sometimes really delicate work; then I have to plant them individually -- which when you have 20 or more separate onions is so many little holes!

Oh, and earlier in the week we got the gate built!

So here are the most recent pictures of the finished garden. The only thing left to do now is to put in the drip irrigation.

Eastern Beds: Winter squash, tomatoes, peppers in the front bed;
broccoli, kale, collards, kohlrabi, lettuce to the back.
Wine barrels: front, nasturtiums, calendula, agastache;
back barrel, marigolds; center barrel TBD.

Through the garden gate (temporary)

Western beds: beans, radishes, carrots, celery, peas, beets in
the front bed; summer squash, onions, and various greens
in the back. The wine barrels contain strawberries (front)
and flowers (cosmos, bee balm, and flowering carrot) back.

Before we started!

Wow, I haven't posted on this in a LONG time. Of course, I haven't had a real garden in two years, so that might explain it!

So here we go, the new garden. Still in the building stages, so you'll get to see the progress!

We had to surround the garden bed with a temporary fence, as the dog loves to walk in the soft soil. We'll be building a fence to surround the whole garden later this week, and will eventually get a decorate metal gate cut by my friend Keith, who is a metalwork artisan by trade.

Tilling has begun

Finishing up the tilling

Ground is prepped and ready!

Landscape fabric down and center circle pavers laid

Path and gravel done!

All the gravel is down, and the first bed is built! 

The first bed, partially planted!