First Raised Bed Results

This is a picture from August 16th of the first raised bed we built back in April. You may remember it was planted with cool weather chives and lettuce that eventually got attacked by rabbits. In the middle you can still see one of the romaines that were attacked, fully having gone to seed. I left it on purpose just to see if I could get it to reseed itself. The chives also appear in each front corner, nice and tasty. I used them in my cooking quite a bit. The hardest part, in fact, is remembering to cut them since they make a yummy addition to so many dishes! Next year I think I'm going to have to move them into the herb garden though.

After the initial chives and lettuce, I direct sowed some Bright Lights heirloom Swiss Chard and Parsley seed in June and then planted another nursery parsley in July. The flat-leaf parsley on the left, immediately next to the chives, is the one I direct sowed. I'm really impressed with how nicely the parsley came in, considering that from what I have read parsley is normally difficult to germinate. It did indeed take a really long time to grow, but eventually filled in well. Since they are supposed to be biennial, next year they'll probably have to be moved to the herb garden too. I planted both the parsley and chives before I planted the herb garden so that's why they got misplaced.

As for the chard, I thought it grew extremely slowly too. But unlike parsley, that seems to be irregular for chard. You can see the one on the right is much bigger than the two right next to each other on the left. I really don't know why that is, I planted them all at the same time. I read on the gardenweb.com forums that others experienced a slow growing season this year, so that may be why.

In the background is heirloom Scarlet Runner Beans but I'll describe them in more detail another day.

And here is that same bed on Sept. 28th. I haven't seen any baby romaine there so I guess it didn't manage to reseed. I already trimmed the chard once or twice and had a few delicious side dishes from them. I like to just saute them with a little olive oil and minced garlic, then sprinkle with lemon. Yum. Swiss Chard is definitely my favorite green.

I intended to make tabouleh with the parsley this past weekend but didn't get around to it. Luckily parsley freezes well so whatever I don't manage to cook before the hard frost, I can just stick in the freezer for later.