Preparing for Spring: Garden Boxes

Gardeners are eternal optimists! There is always next year to plan for - so we prepare in the fall, and wait patiently all winter... for the spring!

One of the tasks on my OCTOBER TO DO LIST was to pick up some old wooden packing boxes that friends of ours (Janet and Greg) had - but didn't need - to make a raised garden (for veggies) - like the ones I saw this year in their yard.

I used to plant vegetables. Freshly-picked produce tastes so good. I also wanted my children to see that vegetables didn't simply come from grocery stores...

But after a few years - memorable ones for the whole family - I stopped. The veggies seemed to ripen just when we were planning to be away. Or the squirrels got to them before we did.

But seeing Janet's garden-in-a-box - one containing beans, another tomatoes and a third carrots - inspired me to try again.














So here they are - leftover packing boxes Greg (Janet's husband) found at work but doesn't need... (I notice that a squirrel is already checking out the one on the right!)














The plan is to fill them with several inches (20 or 30 centimeters) of leaves this fall, and fill them with soil and compost in the spring - and then try vegetable gardening again. It seems to me that I read somewhere that raised garden beds do better than ones planted on the ground. We'll see next year...

Janet says the biggest drawback to the raised beds is that they have to be watered a lot. The water seeps out quickly.

I sprayed them with some leftover spray paint I bought 10 years ago, to spruce up some old cupboard knobs.


















I really didn't like the smell - or the environmental effects of the chemicals in the spray propellant - so I'm glad it's gone. I probably won't buy it again...














Do they look tidier now?

Now all I have to do is WAIT FOR SPRING!