Spring waits for nobody

Spring waits for nobody. Now that May has almost arrived, everything is coming back to life. Here in south-central Wisconsin, we are apparently about 2 weeks ahead of schedule in terms of temperature. I have heard that people are already putting their tomatoes out. This sounds a little risky.

This past week I took off 3 days for a working vacation, to put in some hard time in the garden and in the dome. Spring waits for nobody, so there is no time like the present.

Priority one was to get the dome finished. I finished applying mortar to the interior walls. What was next was to finish up the garden beds, which Katie and I designed. In the foreground are two partially buried pots that contain grape vines. Above are to lines that the vines will grow on (hopefully!).

Here is a shot from above, me standing on the foundation wall. You can see the star pattern of the beds with narrow paths. We decided to not put a bed on the right (north-east) and to use that spot as a work area and a place to grow grapes. I spent Friday afternoon after a long night of playing music with Not On Mars shoveling wood chips that we're freely available at the Mount Horeb municipal compost site and bringing them home for use on the dome floor. Looks nice, doesn't it? I've moved several yards of some fiine A'mer'kin horse manure and chicken-poop compost into these beds, with several more yards to go. Should grow some fine veggies with this mix.

Aiden has been very helpful, too, helping Dad cut and drill boards for raised beds. Oo! Looks like he left his tools out! :)

On the inside post for the grape lines, I put hooks which are now holding potted strawberries. Pretty soon I will put up 2 or 3 of these outside to hang the strawberries, as the dome will be too warm for them. This post will end up having four different heirloom variety tomato plants, mostly smaller varieties, which will cascade down around the post. I can't wait to see (and taste!) this when it's flourishing. :)


Here is another shot of the grape line and hanging post.

It's time to get our young plants in the ground. Katie was thinking of having the tomatoes run the outer perimeter of the beds. Tomatoes in the back, then herbs and other goodies in the front.

Strawberries are getting some flowers on them. I bought these bare-root. I'm going to try and winter them in a buried box this winter.