A Great Day to Think about Gardening

Though it was very warm by typical Early-March-in-Northern-Montana standards ( a balmy 52 degrees or so!), the wind was blowing ceaselessly, which made most outdoor activities less appealing. It was a great day for beginning to work on our garden.

We have great plans for a raised-bed garden this year and today we took the first step, which was actually creating the frame of the garden. Jeff and I bought some lumber on a recent outing to Havre and earlier this morning constructed two 8'x10' frames for the garden we will share with Tom and Carol.

The garden beds will be located here at the farm. This way it will be easy for everybody to take a turn with planting and garden maintenence. It also didn't make much sense to me and Jeff to install much of a garden at our current residence, as we will not be living there forever.  We certainly hope our construction skills will stand the test of time and we will be enjoying gardening in our raised-bed plots well into the future, when Jeff and I have relocated here.

We had a bit of a family meeting between the four of us deciding on the rough placement of the beds. They will be within close proximity to the new water line that went in late last fall, and also close to the compost heap.  The beds are relatively protected from the wind by carigana bushes and should receive full sunlight.  Between the two new raised beds and the existing garden site Carol has been using for some time, as well as another small plot solely dedicated to herbs, we should have space for quite a bit of produce.

Some seeds were ordered a few nights ago-- mixed greens, carrots, a few varieties of peas and beans, to name a few.  Other edibles we will pick up as sprouts from local greenhouses later this spring.  With the help of a few good garden books and some advice from my readers (please leave you comments below, or email me!), the outlook on the upcoming gardening season looks good! There is nothing better than delicious produce straight from the garden! 

Here's a few of the books we are using. They have each been helpful so far!