fi fi's tee pee

i've been wanting to make a garden tee pee for my daughter for some time. my husband recently gave me a home depot gift certificate for mother's day, so me and my fi fi headed to the "orange store" where we picked up a bag of peat moss, a bag of pine bark mulch and a few pieces of bamboo. the bamboo weren't as big as i had imagined, but they will work. fi fi got a big kick out of me "making her a bed" in the buggy. here we go..,..



i keep decade old horse manure dug from my parent's barn. that along with the two boxes of plastic edging i had gotten a few months ago, plus the loot from the orange store had me ready to go.


after clearing out the grass a bit (the area had been plowed a few months ago, so it was easy). the bamboo was pushed in it as far as it would go. The fact that the soil was loose added to the hard rain we had that morning allowed me to push it in the ground about three or four inches. i then dug a circular trench around the outside of the bamboo.



i placed cardboard inside. i'd love to, at some point, plant some thyme inside or at the entrance.

i tied the bamboo a few at a time, thoroughly, with kitchen twine. and then placed the edging in the ground.

i filled the trench with peat moss and aged horse manure. i also dumped a bag of pine bark mulch inside the tee pee. as the seedlings grow i'll push the mulch out over them and leave the rest inside. we were finally ready to plant....

fi fi and i planted kentucky wonder pole beans and mammoth sunflowers.....now we're willing them to grow!

i was putting off this project because i thought it would take a long, hard time. i had planned on harvesting branches from the woods. it might have been sturdy, but would have also rotted faster than this bamboo. this project turned out to be VERY easy and took up little space. it could easily be knocked out in one morning or afternoon.

poop amaranth and tomato

my first raised bed i call my "OG bed." it was started as a lasagna-style bed with peat moss, vermiculite, mushroom compost and black cow in the spring of 2009.

i have a second raised bed that was started the same way. this one i'm calling new edition because i've recently added a one tier cinderblock addition with a permanent trellis to it.

these raised beds are the first of many, hopefully. i did all the backbreaking work myself. my dad helped me transport the cinderblocks and my tall husband helped me hang the tall trellis, but other than that this is all me. so i'm taking it slow, one day at a time.........



i'm not sure why i only planted three tomato plants this year. i am kicking myself in the butt. but. one cherokee purple one two romas are all i planted. last year i grew all my tomatoes from seed and it was a huge success. this year i got seedlings from the nursery. next year i'll be more on top of the mater growing.

roma

cherokee purple

cilantro going to seed in the OG bed.

right now my tomatoes are on the east end, surrounded by basil and marigolds. there's cilantro growing behind the tomatoes that i'm torturing by pinching off the blooms. i've allowed two stow-away sunflowers to thrive and a Chinese cabbage plant to go to seed. in the north west corner are two baby okra plants (16 inch pod). today i put in some hartman's giant amaranth seed.....and some ten year old horse poop. there's a couple of peppers in there too. i'm hoping that the giant amaranth and okra will provide some shade for my tomatoes in the hot south louisiana months, so they will produce a little longer.