With all this hoopla about the shed installations, I haven’t been documenting my garden work.
This year I topped off my beds with soil, finally getting them up to level. I used my own compost for the first time. I was amazed that it worked. I will likely get another compost bin or build one at some point.
I then planned out my garden for planting. Every year I plan out my beds. Below is my plan with the date I planted them.
I jumped the gun on some of those, and mid April was way too early. I thought we were in the clear, but we still had some very cold frost dates.
When I get the back yard shed replaced with the bigger one, I am going to devote a small bit of space to one of those Spyder branded grow tents. If anyone can grow plants in a shed, it’s a pot grow tent. I imagine they are built to be plant friendly in the weirdest environments because you know, pot.
I did have to do a bit of replanting. My dill and basil were like a total no go. Even now? After replanting the basil on 5/7/25, I am not seeing even the slightest leave. I had such good luck with the basil last time, but I just can’t get them to come up. I might consider going to the nursery and getting six little starts and just doing it that way.
My grocery store green onions are exploding, but I also planted some Tokyo Long White’s and Italian Red’s from Botanical Interests. Most of my seeds are from there, as I have had pretty good luck with that.
I have several cabbages planted, and they started to come up but the cabbage moths are already out in force. In like a day the tiny leaves were almost eaten up, so I pulled out some BT spray and that seems to be helping. I have been spraying them twice a week to help, and they seem to be popping back up. My enemy this year is the cabbage moth.
Another big win is the patty pans are going to town. I wish the tomatoes next to them would take off, but it’s been slow going for them. I love my tom’s and I am a bit worried for them.
I am also doing 4 bags of potatoes. They are coming up really well too. I’ve never grown potatoes before so I am hopeful.
My rhubarb has blown up. I just cut down the flowering seed stalk part that was taller than me yesterday. Next to it is an empty bed. With the entire shed ordeal being ongoing, I am just not up to digging it all out, laying down gravel and replacing the beds on this wall of the house right now. Instead I will let my rhubarb and mint go wild and see how I feel about setting that up this winter, after all the sheds are in place and done.
Ignore the Kia Soul over there. It’s one of the theft-bate versions, so it lives in my back yard behind a fence unless we have an emergency and need it. It’s getting traded in as soon as my Subaru is paid off.
The real star of the garden this year, as you may have noticed from the pictures, was the irrigation set up.
I tried it a bit last time, but I went to Drip Depot and followed the directions on their YouTube video on how to set it up this year and it was so damn easy. I am a convert.
This was way easier to set up than the kit I got off Amazon. I had it all done fast. It’s reliable, and I set it up to water twice a day for an hour. My beds look great and I feel like when you are playing Minecraft and your base levels up.
This is single handedly the most useful upgrade I could have done. Now if it’s a bad day for me and I am in bed, my garden is still getting watered. I am ecstatic.
Now if I could just get my basil to start up, I’d be perfect.
Garden Rat 