Sang as it Ever Was

To be clear, this is a net for fruit and vegetables grown on trellises

I put in a request on chip drop the other week, expecting to wait a few weeks if not months to get my load of free wood chips. Then my roommate texted me this morning about being scared half to death when they dropped off this massive pile. The tradeoff of chipdrop is you get chips for free (I donated $20 to the arborists to offset costs a bit), but you don't get to decide when and how much - the website said you can get from 4 cubic yards to 20 cubic yards. You can request tree types you don't want, and I hope they're not in there?

The good roommate helped me out a ton by moving over a third of the pile into the backyard. Today I mowed and weed wacked around the beds, and filled in some low spots. Tomorrow I should be getting weed barrier and be able to put that down, and start filling in the spaces between the garden beds!

I've been warned that raw chips are super bad for garden beds, and that they need to be composted a bit. Going to do a little more research on it. I'm also worried about putting chips from trees I'm not sure about on the beds. I have the name of the company that did the chipping, so I'm sending an email in hopes they might be able to tell me. No guarantees, but it doesn't hurt to ask.

Finally sat down to plan out the garden space and goddamn I'm so excited. Also scared. But excited! The vertical gardens on the left are all in a row, I just stacked them like this to make it more compact. I think I have all of the companion plants next to each other? The brussels being there might be a problem, as they'll be a bit harder to cover and keep out moths. Any circles just floating out in the aether are designated for little fabric pots.

The real kicker is this layout is asking me to create six different trellises, which uhhhh, I hope I have the cash for (irrigation system will just have to wait until next year). The trellises will either be frames with string either woven or with eye hooks, or cattle panels. I have a fucked up looking A frame planned for the tomatoes. If I'm outta cash, it'll be a simple Florida weave and we'll see how well it plays with bigger tomatoes.

The other blind spot is that a couple of these are early spring crops - things like radishes and cauliflower - and will have pretty big bare spots when they're harvested. Maybe the cantaloupe and cucumbers will just fill in?

...I should make room for more tomatoes...

I'm not going to think too hard about it being this nice when it's only March, just be excited to be outdoors and touching grass again. Four new beds assembled and placed. Looks like the kale in the sacrificial bunny garden self seeded and is starting to grow.