Community Garden update, also Lettuce!

Spent a lot of time in the community garden on Tuesday, and after all that work, here's how it looked:
You can see the first of the 3 raised beds I'm installing, and the beginnings of the second.  We put down the newspaper and cardboard to block out the existing weeds.  I like newspaper because I won't be finding it in the garden for years to come - in order to lay down this paper we first had to pull up remnants of ground cloth that was who knows how old.  There was still some left, but I just ran out of "oomph".

Then we used the 4x4 boards as borders, and piled in there the twigs and brush from the plot that we had raked up.  Then we topped that with shredded pine bark (it tends to break down very rapidly) and salt marsh hay (few weeds), and finally I put a good 3 inches of compost on top.  I imagine everything will be broken down enough in a month when I go out to plant!

In the background you can also see the perennial rows, where there are strawberries and rhubarb already, and I just planted four blueberry bushes and some cranberry bushes.

You can also see my cute little cart which makes getting things out to the garden down the 500 yard path WAY easier.  I intend to go back out both mornings this weekend and spend a lot of time on the remaining beds!!!  I thought we would have had them done this Tuesday, but a rainstorm came up and my husband wanted to leave before we got rained on.

 

The lettuce in my home garden, that I planted out about a month ago, is looking really, really good.  It's covered to protect it from frost, cold winds, and also whatever is eating my peas (I'll get you, you pesky....  rabbit?).  So far that strategy has worked very well!

I'm looking very much to a tasty salad this weekend!  Now if only my carrots would sprout and give me yummy carrots!

A few of my asparagus babies are also up now - I could eat four pieces right now, if I wanted to, but those would probably be the last!

Last night I started from seed:

Beams Yellow Pear Tomato

Brown Berry Cherry Tomato

Gold Rush Currant Tomato

The tomatoes I planted last week are almost all up and doing good!  So are the peppers!