Well this year’s vegetable garden is ready for business and as of now looks pretty good with some starter vegetables some new and some transplants from last year. The transplants from last year are the Swiss chard and chives, rosemary and sage. My new plants are my basil, bell peppers various colors, habanero peppers, edamame beans, golden tomatoes, beefeater tomatoes, stevia, crookneck squash, cucumbers. These will kick start things but more to come via seeds and greenhouse plants.

The chore this year as mentioned in earlier post was getting rid of the mint roots but I dug most out but had to go deep and dissemble my garden paver making up my raised garden to get the mint roots growing between the pavers. I also placed heavy duty weed block between pavers and dirt to replace what I had done when initially building the raised garden  8 years ago which will keep the mint and roots from growing between pavers.

I also had to replace some parts of my drip system and rearrange the watering pattern so it can grow as I add more plants. This year on the eats side of the garden I also laid my rows out east to west instead of north to south as I normally do and did on the west side of the garden. The lay out of the garden should help when it comes time to tend and harvest the garden.

I still have some work to do as far as cleaning the concrete and moving a few other things in the backyard but the garden is ready to rock!

Here is the progress via pictures:

This is my initial foray with the rototiller and removal of some vegetables I eventually transplanted back in garden:

This is my continued deconstruction of pavers to get to mint roots:

Placing weed block behind pavers:

After more rototiller action introducing new  mulch and top soil:

Made rows, placed and repaired drip system, added vegetables:

Rewarded myself with tri-tip and cooked whole chicken for the week on Trager Grill I picked up in November: