Raised Bed Garden

New 2012 Raised Bed

Seven years ago, I built a garden for my wife along side the north wall of our backyard so it would get plenty of sunshine.  It is 32 feet long and 4 feet wide for a total of 128 square feet, but you can never have enough garden space in the desert.  My wife always planted tomatoes, peppers, and other vegetables in it, but late last year I lost four of my tomato and two pepper plants to a late season blight.  Since I know it's important to rotate tomatoes, peppers, and egg-plant, I wanted a new garden area for these.--plus this would also give me room to grow more green's and other vegetables.

My new garden is 12 feet by 5 feet which increases my total area by almost 50%--yea!.  I built the old garden out of 4x4's stacked on top of each other and bolted together, but this time I decided to use 2x8's 12 feet long.  Due to the length, I doubled up the sides and screwed them together to keep them from bowing outward and for longevity.  This seems to be a much better way to build a raised bed, but only time will tell.
After building the frame I turned over the Bermuda grass and layered it with 4 sheets of newspaper (our local paper uses soy based ink). then I added 12 cubic feet of steer manure, about 10 cubic feet of my home grown compost, and topped it off with 12 cubic feet of commercial mushroom compost.  I need to check the PH of the soil to make sure it is not too acidic.
The sad looking plants are some "50 Pound Head" Bonnie cabbages I inherited from my wife--another school project.  I thought these had hardened these off well enough, but I planted them three days ago and then we had a cold windy spell --yikes.  I'll know in a few days if they are going to make it.

Robins in the Garden

Last June of 2011, I had a pair of Robins every morning that would dig up earth worms and take them back to their nest.  I hated to see the worms go, but it was a good cause and the garden seemed to have plenty of them.  It was fascinating watching the Robins finding the worms and I was finally able to get a few photos of them.  I think the male is the one with feathers standing more upright on the head--although looking at these images makes me think they are all of the male Robin

You can click on the images and see a larger view.

Seed Starting Setup

This is my new seed starting setup, the frame is built from inexpensive 2x2 wood furring with metal corner reinforcements.  It is 5 feet long to accommodate the 48 inch shop lights I had laying about in the garage.  I used a 40 watt cool white and a 40 watt natural white tube in each fixture.  It is 24 inches tall and 27 inches wide, and the lights adjust for height using chains looped over screws.  If I had to buy the light fixtures my total cost would only have been about $60, a bargain compared to commercial versions of this type setup.
I should be able to put 5 flats under it--right now I have a flat of red onion seedlings under the front light that I hope to transplant in mid March.  I also bought a Hydrofarm 17 watt heating mat which is the right side of the frame.  The flat under the rear light has Yukina savoy (Chinese cabbage), Kailaan (Chinese Broccoli), beets, and Swiss chard and all but the chard germinated in only 4 days on the heating mat.  I'm very impressed with the little heating mat, as all of my seeds have germinated in a week or less--including 10 year old daisy's for my wife's class.  After the seed germinate, they should be taken off of the mat, uncovered and placed under the lights.

Intro

2011 Garden

Hello All--I suppose I should first explain the title and purpose of my blog: ABQ comes from the aviation acronym for Albuquerque New Mexico and I included it in the title hoping other local or high desert gardeners would find the blog and provide insight or at least learn from my mistakes.  Last year my sons and I planted a garden for my wife on Mothers Day, but she was busy working on her masters degree, and I ended up inheriting the day to day operations.  Since I'm retired, I'm also the primary cook in our family and the joy of picking fresh vegetables and cooking them the same day was very rewarding and tasty.  I've been learning how to cook for the past four years and I have a few recipes and methods of cooking fresh vegetables that I will also pass along as time permits.
This year the garden will be my primary responsibility and I've been trying to learn as much as possible about all the different aspects of it.  Last year we bought all our plants locally but this year I'm trying to start them from seeds, so I'll be posting more on my setup and results.
Also, with  last year being my first, I used commercial non-organic fertilizers but no pesticides. This year I'm going to try using more organic methods for fertilizer, primarily from the three compost containers I now have.