Back at it!

...and were back at it again. After moving to Fort Collins, CO, we've finally settled in and made a little time for some gardening. Let the new gardening adventures begin.

I keep hearing that Mother's Day is when you start planting tender warm season plants, like tomatoes, eggplants, squash, etc. That's going to take some major patients, since I could probably already be harvesting tomatoes in Austin right now. Today we decided to get started with more cold tolerant plants and get some compost in.

We decided to start with this bed first. It was already here, but was piled full of brush, leaves, was pretty weedy, and had a chicken wire fence around it. Now its cleaned up, old fence tacked to the back fence as trellis, and ready. I am planning for a pretty big garden over time, but this seemed to be an appropriate starting point for this Spring...but, first things first...

...I was sick of throwing vegetable waste into the trash, and I needed a place to put all those leaves, so I built our first compost box. One problem, the crux of this blog is missing. I forgot the shoes in my compost back in Austin, damn. Still trying to figure out how to get them. Anybody want to go over there and dig them out for me? I am actually hoping I can find a way to get them back, one so the blog can continue and they would make a great inoculate.

We planned out the design a bit on paper and then started laying it out on the ground. Added compost where we were planting today and then had to add a small walking path to make sure there was room to move around, but also remind me where things are.

Its hard to see here, but today resulted in planted red candy apple onions on the far right, candy onions on the far left. We also seeded radishes (easter egg on the left and French breakfast on the right) and lettuce along the front and planted garlic in a small space just behind that. A native butterfly and humming bird wildflower mix is seeded on the far right and left edges, and finally we seeded small patches of marigolds in the middle. We didn't plant potatoes today, but prepped the area for planting tomorrow.

Here we have Yukon gold on the left and red potatoes on the right. I chopped them up, making sure each piece had at least one eye in it.

And then shook them in fireplace ashes and let them sit over night to callus up a bit. I read about this method a while back and have had pretty good success the last couple of years. 

And then called it a day. What a better way to work through the transition of Texas gardening to Colorado gardening with a Lone Star (yes, moved here with us and saved for a special occasion). So, here's to learning how to garden in Colorado! Cheers!