Full sun

A nifty tip in Crockett's Victory Garden suggests planting garden rows that run N/S.  The logic here is that all of the plants will receive the benefit of full sun.  Before I ventured outside Sunday afternoon to consider the location and size of the garden, I armed myself with a compass. 

First, I established due south and due north and marked the locations with a stake.  The blue string in the image marks the N/S direction.  As of right now, the overall garden size is 15' deep by 24' wide.  Between each bed will be a path that is 36" wide, making the individual beds 5' x 7'.  The benefit of four individual beds is that they can be accessed from all four sides more easily than one large bed, especially in John's case.   Hmm, now I'm wondering if the beds themselves shouldn't be set up in a N/S direction as well?  Long angled beds ( \ \ \ \ \ ) instead of four rectangular beds ( = = ).  Hmmm.

It felt so nice to be in the yard contemplating where to establish the garden as well as other flower beds.  No snow, just grass under foot, the warm bright sun, and the scent of the warming Earth.  Before we know it, we'll be slicing into our first homegrown tomato and eating it with a few leaves of freshly picked basil.

The garlic continues to grow rapidly and there are several seeds that have sprouted in the seed flats!  So far, all six hollyhock seeds have sprouted, Brussels sprouts, and broccoli. 

Now, the biggest task that remains is to determine how much soil to have delivered and what to use as the border for the raised garden beds.  Fun, fun, fun!