Harvest Monday ... and Big Changes

Whoo Hoo!  I have a harvest!  I had a bed of beets that I had planted late last summer for overwintering.  The last time I had checked they didn't appear to have really done anything and as a part of the "Big Change" I was pulling them out so I could dismantle the raised bed ... and lo and behold, I actually have a few beets big enough to make a serving at a meal!

I'm joining other bloggers over at Daphne's Dandelions as we share our weekly harvests...it's fun to see what others are harvesting and what they are cooking up with it...check it out!

Now on to the changes!  I mentioned a while back that we are putting in a greenhouse.  As a result, one of my raised beds was going to have to be dismantled.  When we took it apart I realized why the moles had been able to get into my beds last spring ... the chicken wire we had placed under them was rusted and torn in several places.  The decision was made.  We are going to have another late spring in the Pacific Northwest.  While the rest of the country is having record high temperatures we are expected to have snow tonight!  As long as spring is on hold we decided to go ahead and pull up all of the raised beds, reconfigure the garden layout and mole proof the beds.

We went form this (taken last summer) ...

... to this, with two of the beds removed ...

... and adding hardware cloth nailed to the bottoms ...

... replaced three of the beds.  Here you can see the beginnings of the foundation for the greenhouse and the three 4' x 8' beds in the background.  There is still the 3' x 12' bed in the back. (The broken down fence and dead trees are on the neighbors property ... nothing I can do except hide them eventually with some trellis and vines :(

Once the greenhouse construction is completed there will be room for one more 4' x 8' bed; we will wait  to put it in so as to give us room to move around while building.

We are also taking out the beds that were in front of the dogs yard ... that area just gets too muddy with our Washington rains.  I'm going to have three pretty wine barrels with flowers and herbs there instead.  I will end up with about a third less growing space in the back of the house, but I figure some of that will be made up for by the greenhouse and also some by the new cold frame that we have added to the front of the house down by the lake....

I'm hoping to transplant some of my Asian greens from the potting shed into the cold frame by the end of the week, depending on how much snow we get.

It's a lot of changes but I think it will be better looking and easier to care for.  I'll keep you posted!

Enjoy!