Chef Paul: Garden Update 2
April 21 2011
Our garden is coming along. The tomato plants are a good 8cm tall at this point and the Swiss chard and kale have both sprouted. Some of the tomato plants have been transferred to larger pots. Soon, they will be transported outside to become acclimatized to our damp and cold spring. They’ll spend days outside in the sunshine (we hope) and then be returned to the house or placed in the shed overnight until the weather is warmer.
I spent part of the last weekend building a new cedar container to plant more veggies in. This one is up against our house and should get pretty good sunlight. I plan on adding a trellis to the back so that we can plant vegetables that can climb such as beans or cucumbers. The space was occupied by our heating oil tank which we’ve since moved inside. It still needs a bit of work. We had planned on repainting the house foundation last summer but ran out of time. That’s kind of a good thing seeing as how now we must scrape and paint where the tank used to be. I’ll do it before we add any soil to the area some none of the soil is contaminated with paint chips.
I built our boxes out of cedar because cedar weathers well and is non toxic. It is not recommended that you build planter boxes out of pressure treated lumber as the chemical used in treating the lumber will leach into the soil. It’s a bit more expensive but looks really good.
By the end of May, we should have our first seedling in the ground.
