Raised Vegetable Beds

Well, this is a real bummer about only 5 pictures in a post. I don't recall having this problem before. These are some pictures from the raised vegetable beds on the side of the house outside my bedroom window. This is a Forellenschluss.

This is a view from the backyard towards the front. Those are trellis up there. 16 feet on each bed and they are both loaded with Sugar Snap Peas about 8-10 in tall. We can't wait! The kids love just munching fresh Sugar Snap Peas from the garden. I really like to grow things they know they can freely graze on outside.

The arches are a new experiment on the beds. I had plastic on them early this spring and it was amazing with helping the plants to grow underneath. However I found it an awful pain to water because of how we had to secure the plastic to the ground with giant staples. Right now it's covered in deer netting. It keeps the cats out who think a freshly planted raised bed is an ideal litter box. And this summer it should actually help keep the deer from helping themselves.

The tall feathery stuff you see in the bed above and in the picture below is my fennel. I'd always wanted to grow fennel. I'll admit I don't even like to eat fennel like I once used to. But Swallowtail butterflies love to lay their eggs in fennel. Last year I had some and it was covered in Swallowtail caterpillars. The kids love caterpillars and butterflies. Every spring and summer someone is catching Emmeline butterflies and bringing them in the house. My favorite is a bouquet of flowers that comes complete with butterflies!

This is some Rainbow Swiss Chard.

And this is a sweet little Tom Thumb lettuce growing between my rows of Swiss Chard. I love this lettuce. It's a really good tasting butterhead and it's just plain cute.