Getting My Garden Ready

I have been planning my garden for several months now.
Even while we were on our roadtrip, I was planning my garden, spending quite a bit of time searching Pinterest and perusing the internet for great ideas to make this years garden better than ever.

I love to garden, I love working outside, and I especially love eating fresh vegetables that I know my hard work brought to my family.

We don’t plant outside here in Eastern Washington until the snow is off of Mt Spokane. At least, that is what the Farmers Almanac says. Even though the snow has been gone for several weeks due to a light winter, we’ve still had some chilly nights. We typically wait til Mother’s Day weekend knowing it ‘shouldn’t’ snow past that time. Although, just because it shouldn’t happen, doesn’t mean it hasn’t in the past. We have some pretty unpredictable weather here in the Pacific Northwest.

At any rate, we haven’t planted yet, but I do have a few starts going in my greenhouse.

During a typical summer, I spend hours upon hours upon hours weeding.
I hate weeding!
Does anyone really like weeding?
Except my Mom… does anyone really like weeking?
Such a daunting task.
Granted, it does give me some time to become one with Mother Earth so to speak, but I swear, the second I pull up a weed, five more grow in it’s place.
It’s worse than plucking a gray hair!

So this year I have a new plan of attack against weeding and for planting my garden.
I plan to cover my entire garden with rocks.
You read it right. Rocks!
Then I’ll use old tires for planting boxes.

The tires will give a very small growing space for my plants, and even less space for the weeds to pop up. Where it would normally take me hours to weed the entire garden, walking spaces included; I will now just have the space within the tire opening to weed. Plus the black tires will give the plants an extra boost of heat to grow bigger and fuller plants than before.

I have done quite a bit of research and nothing I have found has told me that the food that I grow will contain any toxins from the tires.

It really is a brilliant idea. I can say that because it wasn’t my idea.
My friends, Jake and Beth, gave me the idea.
And seriously, you should be following Beth on Instagram!

They have been growing their garden in tires for a couple of years now, and have never yielded a better bounty of beautiful veggies. How do you like them apples?

This is where I am at now.
Fabric is down.
SOME of the tires are in.

Still a lot of work to go.
I have a load of dirt and more tires coming on Saturday.
Fill the tires with good soil for plants.
Spread rock around the tires so it will look more appealing than the red fabric.
Then it’s planting time.

More on my garden to come as things progress.

In the mean time, I’d love to know how you grow your garden.
What are some of your best gardening tips for Spring?