Yesterday, my sweet son "helped" me clean out the winter clutter from our raised beds. He is the sweetest little garden buddy! He was distracted with a ladybug on one of his little diggers just as I finished up the biggest bed and raked it oh-so-smooth, (the mushroom compost has made for some really dark, rich soil!) and when he saw the finished bed he exclaimed over and over, "Ohhhh, Mom, it's sooo beautiful!"
"Mama, it's really beautiful!"
"It's just so beautiful!!"
Do you have any idea how that warmed my heart?! My little gardener in the making, loving the orderliness of a freshly raked plot - such a great joy to my soul.
Let me just say,
that was a beautiful moment!
(I sadly didn't have the camera handy yesterday, but here he is by the garden two summers ago. What a sweetheart!)
How do you like the raised bed method of growing veggies? Is the weed problem the same as simply planting in the ground?
ReplyDeleteMonica, I really LOVE raised bed veggie gardens. Hardly any weeds, no grass encroachment, easy to reach, observe and teach in, harder for bunnies to get in... What I really love the most about them is that I know a lot about the dirt in which my organic veggies are growing.* I was preparing the beds in our yard to be regular beds, and as I double-dug, up came cat litter, rusty nails, glass... all kinds of strange and unwelcome things. The raised bed is filled with loam and mushroom compost from the local dirt guy, and we shoveled it all in ourselves, and I know what's in it (and what's not, you know?)
ReplyDeleteThe only negative is that the neighborhood cats thought we made it for them (yuck! - had to be vigilant with a water hose to squirt the intruders for a while before they stopped coming), and of course the space limitations, but I've been really pleased with the quantity of veggies we get from plants that are growing in healthy soil!
*I have to add that organic gardening is sooo easy in this climate. We have hardly any bugs as it is, and the snails/slugs are slow moving and obvious, so they are easy to eradicate. I do fertilize a bit, so maybe it's not totally organic, but I know that no pesticide or herbicide has been around my food! Love that! :)