Another addition to the garden

So my husband surprised me today. Not with flowers or candy, but with making me 2 more beds for my garden! :D

Here is the raised beds we made last year.

Here is the 1st addition Mr. Smith made.

Here is the other 2 beds he made. The one closest to the fence is for tomatoes since we didn't have enough buckets or places to put them or funds to build places to put them. So we will have some the traditional way, in the ground and others upside down. The 2nd is for feed corn for our chickens.

Here is the whole garden. Its HUGE and I LOVE it.

Our bed with onions and the strawberry we planted last year.

2nd bed of new strawberry plants.

Just planted today 12 transplanted green pepper plants.

Here is my biggest pepper transplant.

Here is one of the broccoli beds. Not all of the transplants made it. Only 12 did. I did not let them harden first. So I think this killed all the others off. I will be re seeding where those died off.

Here is a  broccoli transplant that is doing great!

Here is the 1st set of sweet corn seedlings I planted. We have decided to try an old Native American way of growing the corn. Its called the 3 sisters. Corn, pole green beans, and pumpkins. What they do is work off of each other and benefit and promote the growth of one another. The way it works is the beans put more nitrogen in the soil, which corn LOVES and the corn stalk helps the vine of the bean climb up the stalk and the pumpkins with their large and abundant leaves help retain moisture in the soil by providing shade to the soil and as the pumpkin vines grow they loose some leaves that are natural compost and mulch for the soil. All which work and feed each other. Its amazing how it works. I did not plant the beans or pumpkins yet...ran out of sunlight. my neck, face and back got enough of it though! HA HA HA Not going to hear the end of that for a few weeks. :)

Here is a transplanted sweet snap pea. These are a family favorite! We use the newspaper (shown) to prevent weeds and hold in the moisture of the soil and the mulch is also to help retain moisture, which is homemade and I LOVE anything homemade! :D

Here is my clothes line with the 3 gallon buckets/cherry tomatoes in the front and 5 gallon buckets/ beef steak tomatoes in the back.

One of our seedling cherry tomatoes, transplanted to the 3 gallon bucket this morning.

He is small now....but they sure do grow fast!

We were out working all day. We are almost completed with the sowing of all of seedlings and seeds. We are still planting in waves to keep the season going longer. This also helps my back and knees because this is less I have to plant at a time and less I will have to rush around to harvest and then can or freeze. Makes life a little easier. The weather man says its going to rain for the next 4 days....we shall see. I hope not, that would mean no farming! :(