Plans, plans, plans... Part Deux

    Last weekend we ordered our seeds for the garden we have been planning! We had a ton of seed catalogs Husband picked up at the Organicology conference he attended in Portland last month and I was excited to try out some of the companies I had never heard of. One of my main goals for seeds this year was to order from companies that sourced and grew their seed specifically for the short season growing period of the Pacific N.W. I figure this will give our N.W. garden the best chance of success!
   We ended up ordering form Siskiyou Seeds in Southern Oregon and Irish Eyes over in Ellensburg Washington. I wanted to order EVERYTHING from the Seed Savers Exchange catalog which deals solely with gorgeous heirloom varieties and has beautiful glossy glamor shots of all their product along with heart warming and morally affirming stories of heroic seed savers across the globe. sigh.
   I stayed sensible though, only in my fantasies will I be able to grow purple okra and Moon and Stars watermelon in this backyard. We are very pleased with our purchases and dealing with both of the companies through the interwebs was super easy. Someone even called me personally from Siskiyou to arrange a replacement for one of the items I had ordered. Very nice. Some of the stars of this growing season will be Buttercup squash, Nantes carrots, Walla Walla onions, DeCiccio broccoli, and Blue Lake beans. We chose varieties that freeze or keep well and while we didn't get anything too fancy we will be experimenting with some Tatsoi ( a spicy mustardy type green ) to keep salads interesting.
   We also started to prep for the raised beds.

     We had thought of gravel or wood chips or ( in our fantasies ) hazelnut husks for the area surrounding the raised beds. In the end however, we used what we have a lot of: sod. Boring I know, but hey it's FREE. What we end up taking out we will put in the spaces towards the back of the beds that are currently just dirt. It looks preeety nice and did I mention it was free? And maintenance? Mow it.
   After we placed the sod it looked pretty bumpy. We do not own a roller to smooth it out so Husband took out his trusty creasote beam and worked his magic. It goes like this:

Pick up rail road tie

Position railroad tie so it falls evenly.

Drop rail road tie.

Amazingly this works really well. Who needs specialized equipment when you have a husband under thirty? His words by the way.