Building a garden bed
PTH=2026/06; (cd /home/cgorichanaz/projects/website/pelican-content/blog/"$PTH"; find ../../../images/"$PTH" -type f -iname "*.jpg" -print0 | xargs -0 jhead -ft 1>/dev/null; find ../../../images/"$PTH" -type f -iname "*.jpg" -printf "%T@ %p\n" | sort -n | cut -d' ' -f 2 | while read filename; do printf '\n\n' "$(exiftool -s -S -comment $filename)" "$filename"; done)
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A selection of 2.4 kg of various types of potatoes to plant.
Planting potatoes.
Makeshift bean climbing poles using the 10 foot steel poles I got from someone off Craigslist years ago for Burning Man.
First garden bed, planted.
Ruffie sleeping in the sun next to the garden.
Garden status 2025-04-20: My first indoor seed starting setup is pretty janky, but seems to work. I've got tomatoes in the back and various beans in the front, and sweet potatoes in the salad container.
Garden status 2025-04-20: Tomato seedlings at 7 days.
Garden status 2025-04-27: I upgraded my indoor seed starting shelves a bit. Now I can do a full 2x4 foot heating mat.
Garden status 2025-04-18: The kale and butter nut and acorn squash are sprouting.
Garden status 2025-04-18: The kale and butter nut and acorn squash are sprouting.
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Garden status 2025-05-04: Tomatoes at 22 days.
Garden status 2025-05-04: Maybe these are 22 days old also.
Garden status 2025-05-04: These beans are 26-ish days old.
Garden status 2025-05-15: These are a whole bunch of pumpkin seeds I planted in trays indoors intending to maybe just eat the leaves. But now I decided to plant them in the bed and see if they'll grow some more before eating the leaves.
Garden status 2025-05-15: Garbanzo beans are a few inches tall now. I had no idea what to expect these to look like. Pretty cute!
Garden status 2025-05-15: Garbanzo beans are a few inches tall now. I had no idea what to expect these to look like. Pretty cute!
Garden status 2025-05-15: The potatoes are getting pretty big, about 5 weeks after planting them. Beans are just barely growing. Probably should not have tried to transplant them.
Garden status 2025-05-15: Squash and pumpkins looking kind of sad right after transplant.
Garden status 2025-05-17: Decided to build potentially two more garden beds.
Ruffie resting next to Remi's grave while I collect mixed compost off the top of the garden bed I'm digging.
Second raised garden bed in progress.
Second raised garden bed in progress.
I'm using geotextile out of an abundance of caution so the 12 x 6 x 2 feet of soil doesn't push forward down the hill too much and tip the whole thing over.
Took the opportunity to trim as much of the dead wood as I could reach with Yizhen's battery powered extensible chain saw on a pole.
Crazy Zuko monitoring my progress.
Acacia melanoxylon - Wikipedia
I trimmed a bunch more dead branches from the weedy Acacia melanoxylon trees I've got in my yard, and then used them to fill the base of the raised bed.
After cutting all the branches in smaller pieces, they compacted down pretty well. I'm sure there are tons of air gaps though I won't be able to fill well.
I ordered more crappy garden soil from Home Depot, as it would save me two trips and a bunch of time. 20 3.3 cubic foot Kellogg garden soil bags at $10.47, 7 1 cubic foot steer manure bags at $2.47, $35 delivery, total $288.51 with $26.82 tax.
Garden status 2025-05-22: I filled the second garden bed with transplanted cucumbers and zucchinis and some beans.
Garden status 2025-05-23: Tomatoes at 41 days.
Garden status 2025-05-23: Transplanted 41 day tomatoes to bigger 5 gallon nursery pots.
Garden status 2025-05-23: Transplanted 41 day tomatoes to bigger 5 gallon nursery pots.
Garden status 2025-05-24: Discovered the dogs love to dig in the tomatoes.
Garden status 2025-05-25: The next day, the dogs dug in the tomatoes again. A bunch of my seedlings were strewn about, so now I don't know which ones are which.
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Garden status 2025-06-02: I built a small enclosure for the potatoes so I could try to add more soil as they grow and see if it causes them to make more potatoes.
Makeshift fencing to keep the dogs out of the garden.
OK, we're building a third raised garden bed now.
Filling this bed with yard compost and various low grade stuff.
Third raised bed complete!
Garden status 2025-06-16: The fence fell on Sky, but I guess he didn't mind.
Garden status 2025-06-16: Beginning to cut some squash leaves to cook and add to salads.
Garden status 2025-06-26: Transplanted the squash into their final growing spots. Probably too tight, but we'll see.
Garden status 2025-06-26: First beans.
Garden status 2025-06-26: The pumpkins that I didn't intend to grow out and that seemed to be doing so poorly finally took off.
Garden status 2025-06-26: Cucumbers and zucchinis are growing but very slowly. I don't think there's enough light this high up the hill.
Garden status 2025-06-26: First acorn squash! So cute!
Garden status 2025-06-26: The beans are kind of crappy looking and barely growing up the thing I made.
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Garden status 2025-07-03: The butternut squash leaves are fricken' huge.
Garden status 2025-07-03: Tomatoes are about 80 days old now.
Garden status 2025-07-11: First peas!
Garden status 2025-07-11: First garbanzo beans. I didn't realize there is just a single bean in a pod. So much work for this?!
Garden status 2025-07-11: At least these Iroquois skunk beans look pretty cool.
Garden status 2025-07-11: All that work for a single garbanzo bean and I didn't even get to eat it!
Garden status 2025-07-17: Now we're getting pumpkin flowers every day. So cool.
Garden status 2025-07-17: Corn is recognizable now.
Garden status 2025-07-17: I planted some strawberries as kind of an afterthought, as I never figured out where I wanted to put them and almost killed the ones I bought.
Garden status 2025-07-17: This is a chayote / merliton squash. Just an experiment.
Garden status 2025-07-17: Potato bags to make use of space in the front, which is all concrete. I should just take out the concrete probably.
Garden status 2025-07-17: Tomatoes at about 94 days, and starting to flower.
Garden status 2025-07-20: First pests eating my kale.
Garden status 2025-07-20: First pests eating my kale.
Garden status 2025-07-20: First time eating kale I grew!
Garden status 2025-07-29: Starting to get powdery mildew on the first pumpkins I planted. I'll have to research what to do.
Garden status 2025-07-29: Starting to get powdery mildew on the first pumpkins I planted. I'll have to research what to do.
Garden status 2025-07-29: Starting to get powdery mildew on the first pumpkins I planted. I'll have to research what to do.
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Garden status 2025-07-31
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Garden status 2025-08-26
Garden status 2025-08-05: First tiny cucumber harvest! (It fell off the vine by accident.)
Garden status 2025-08-02: Tomatoes at about 110 days.
Garden status 2025-08-02: Tomatoes at about 110 days.
Garden status 2025-08-05: Now the cucumbers are finally taking up some space, so I'm attempting to stake them up higher.
Garden status 2025-08-09: More powdery mildew on a lot of the oldest planted squash.
Garden status 2025-08-09: It's a squash wonderland under here!
Garden status 2025-08-15: And now the powdery mildew is on all the cucumbers and zucchinis. Ugh.
Garden status 2025-08-15: Adding more compost from the worm bins.
Garden status 2025-08-22: Tomatoes at 129 days.
Garden status 2025-08-22: Tomatoes at 129 days.
Garden status 2025-08-24: Tomatoes at 131 days.
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Garden status 2025-09-08
Garden status 2025-09-10
Garden status 2025-09-10
Garden status 2025-09-01: First cucumber harvest. Not much but they tasted good!
Garden status 2025-09-08: Not sure what's happening to these weird things.
Garden status 2025-09-08: I'm loving this warty beast.
Garden status 2025-09-08: An elusive Japanese kuri squash.
Garden status 2025-09-10: Tomatoes at almost 5 months, after transplanting to larger 7 gallon buckets. It was supposed to be temporary, but I haven't figured out where to plant them yet.
Garden status 2025-09-17: Starting to be able to harvest tomatoes. Some of them taste so good!
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Garden status 2025-10-08
Garden status 2025-10-01: A selection of weird things I was supposed to eat young but forgot to pick.
Garden status 2025-10-04: More tomatoes, yay!
Garden status 2025-10-04: OK, I think I picked this corn too early. It was supposed to be a grinding corn.
Garden status 2025-10-10: Selection of weird squash.
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Garden status 2025-11-01
Funeral
Garden status 2025-11-15: Tomatoes are finally producing a lot, but they are all so small!
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Potato harvest! 2025-12-21
