Another t-shirt day and some soil

 Weather is still trending very warm. I have the tomato seedlings in the kitchen window and have to pull them out in the afternoon or they get cooked. Got out to Lowe's to see if they had any of that soil left that was on sale and of course they were out since Saturday. I got a larger bag for about the same price, organic and may go back and get more next week. HD has the chicken wire cheaper for what I want to get so that's for next week as well. 

I rarely shopped at Lowes due to it being a bit further away but that bag was twice the size of the ones on sale and (at regular price) only $2 more. And it's organic and just fine for putting in the ground. It's pick and choose where to go with garden supplies really. Chicken wire is $2 more at Lowes than HD, different brand of in ground soil for a decent price. Will be looking at their ads more regularly for sure.

When on a budget you go where the price is good. The tomatoes are just about tall enough to plant out at this point. Any bigger they're going to be 'root pruning' themselves and getting stunted. 

The peas all have flowers now, two or three for each plant. Yay! Now that I have this bed set up I can plan on planting earlier in the season next year. I don't know how much sooner I can plant considering  I got the soil for it in January and filled it immediately. I had no plans for it at that time so it sort of caught me flat footed.

Just some reference photos for future use. If I were to do this the 'square foot garden' method there would be a lot more in there. I'm hoping that by the time the peas are done, the beans will be up and Somewhere hopefully, the carrots will come up. If not, gonna have to wait until next year for those. They barely grew the first year I did them and at this point, the seeds may not be as viable as last year.

Onions and garlic need to stay there so once the lettuce is up I'll thin the cilantro some more to a more parallel row so there's more open space for the tomato(es). Beans will take over for the peas and peppers will go in somewhere in the north bed. (who knew peppers would take so long to germinate?)

I will probably be getting another bag or two of soil to work into the south (lettuce) bed and figure out what to plant there. So far (knock on wood/cross fingers) the gophers are staying out of that one even if the back side is open to the fence. It has less sun than the other beds even in middle of summer, so need to do some research and find out what does well in part shade. 

Just a forlorn little bed area, maybe I should try some kale later on? What about flowers? I tried to grow a cucumber there last year that didn't do well at all. It grew, it flowered, never got a single cuke on it and then the gopher got it.

So that's August of last year in the afternoon, cucumber and sunflower from the looks of it. Both were eaten despite the chicken wire. So I may have to put in another trench along the back. OR figure on using pots or a raised planter of some sort there. OR just not use it at all.

I have enough room for what I want to do as long as I can get netting in that north bed sufficiently. Even if I only dig down six or ten inches and then amend so it piles up a bit higher I should be fine. Ideas are rumbling around in my head about how to fix that bed right now.

Work on the immediate plans and let the future be determined by the present.