I’m happy to report that over the weekend I spent more time in the garden than I did online. That is a first and a personal best. Here’s an update, for those interested.

It’s been two weeks since the Drink at Work garden project began, and things are moving right along. Below are some photos of the seedlings we started indoors.

Banarama Hybrid Sweet Pepper

Shortly after these pictures were taken we thinned all of the seedlings except for the herbs and for the most part they’ve all responded well. Although the marigolds — which sprouted more quickly than anything else and were moved to peat pots — haven’t really grown much since the move, and some of them are looking not-so-good. I’m not sure why. I have them planted 2 seedlings to a decent-sized pot, so I may pull them out and separate them to individual pots and see if that helps.

More exciting things are beginning to happen outside in the pots where we direct-sowed some cool weather plants. The arugula seeds have sprouted with a vengeance, and since we’re planning on cutting the leaves for salads as soon as they get to about 3-5 inches, I’m hoping I don’t have to worry with thinning them.

We planted these long green tubs with rows of greens, bookended by perpendicular rows of radishes. You can just see one of the radish plants peeking through below:

This is a look at the garden in progress.

We got our shipment of bare root trees from Cummins Nursery in Ithaca, NY. If you’re interested in growing your own fruit trees, I can’t recommend them enough. Stephen, the owner, responded to all of my questions (and there were a lot) and gave me specific recommendations based on our location and the quality of light we’ll get on our deck. When all was said and done, we got two apple trees, one pear, one plum, one cherry (montmorency sour cherries…i.e. BEST PIE EVER cherries), 5 raspberry bushes, 3 blueberries and 3 grapes.

The trees probably won’t start producing fruit for a couple of years, and we might pinch off any flowers or fruit that develop on the bushes this year to give them time to strengthen the root and branch systems. Although, I want to find out if this is really necessary since we want to keep these plants relatively small.

By the way, those are Vifah refurbished deck tiles, made from FSC-certified eucalyptus. They’re a cost-effective temporary decking solution and the whole thing was fairly easy to put together. Unfortunately, we’re already seeing some warping due to the insane amount of rain we’ve been having. Since the tiles were supposedly pre-treated, I wrote the company and the owner is sending me something that’s supposed to improve them. Perhaps a magic wand. We’ll see what happens.

We also bought some rolls of reeds to fence the deck in over the existing, worn-out lattice work. Again, this was cheap and easy and it makes it a little safer to have the pets out on the deck with us. Although we quickly realized that delicate trees are pretty much the same thing as delicious sticks as far as Fenny is concerned.

We found that large glass window on our street one night and are planning to employ it as a cold frame covering next winter. For now, it’s decorative…and heavy.

Those green tubs are going to be our container version of a square foot garden. Once the greens that are planted in them now have run their course, we’ll start planting all of the warmer weather veggies. We’re going to make a string trellis for the climbers using the two giant metal poles that hold up the deck railing.

In addition to the root stock we got from Cummins, we also ordered four dwarf citrus trees from Four Winds Growers in California. Citrus is such a murky problem for me. Not only is the citrus industry one of the leading contributers to slave labor in this country (read John Bowe’s excellent book Nobodies), it’s not a local food for anyone except Floridians and Californians. I figured the one-time shipment of the dwarf trees was the lesser of a few evils. I need my lemons, limes and oranges. Let’s hope we can keep them alive. We’ll either bring them in for the coldest part of the winter or build a makeshift green house on the deck.

We cut the top of the reed fencing in an uneven pattern to give it a more undulating, organic look and we let it bunch up here and there as we stapled and wired it in over the old wood and metal fencing. Then we wired window boxes through the reeds onto the metal structure, which further anchors the fence and gives us a place to plant strawberries.

We love these river stones for filling in areas that don’t have tile…unfortunately, so does Fenny. We’re eventually going to edge out the rest of the deck with landscape gravel. It’s lighter, cheaper and it won’t block little puppy windpipes.

One big drawback of the deck is that there is no hose. So we get to lug this pretty watering can back and forth from the kitchen.

So, again, so far so good. I’m worried about the marigolds and I’m frustrated that the Swiss Chard I planted outside hasn’t shown it’s face yet. It’s a variety called Bright Lights and it’s supposed to be beautiful. Of course, a lot of things can be beautiful as long as I don’t kill them first.

We still have a bag of seed potatoes in the refrigerator; I need to find a large bucket to start them in. After that we’ll just be maintaining rather than planting for the next several weeks. And of course, we have to find cheap furniture so that we can start inviting our friends over to drink on the deck. No eating though; dinner won’t be ready for a few months yet.