I haven’t been having very productive weekends of late. Usually I am slow to wake up and quick to go back to sleep, much to the chagrin of my wife and kids This weekend, however — particularly Saturday — I got something accomplished that I’ve wanted to do for a long time: I planted an herb and vegetable garden.

Some time ago I bought 2×12s to make two raised beds, each 4′ x 8′. I tried, and failed, to put them together in a sturdy fashion. Fortunately Keegan succeeded in securing them and with help from Michele, got the frames installed in the backyard in the spot I had chosen. He also filled in part of the top soil I had bought. Saturday, with his help, I was able to complete the whole job including dumping the rest of the 50 bags of topsoil into each garden bed.

Earlier that day, we visited a couple of nearby nurseries. (One of the many nice things about where we live is that everywhere you turn, there are nurseries with tons of variety of things to buy.) We bought some nice tomato plants, and lots of herbs including basil, French tarragon, yarrow, lavender, thyme, chives, bronze fennel, and cilantro. We also bought several plants of columbine and coreopsis — the latter is a beautiful, blood red color rather than the usual bright or pale yellow. Then we planted a row of sunflowers as well.

I am really pleased with the results. The garden space is small but manageable, and I especially look forward to harvesting lots of yummy, homegrown tomatoes along with fresh basil. In a few weeks I also will plant some additional crops for a fall harvest (e.g. lettuce, beans, peas).

In the meantime, the window boxes planted about a month ago are doing extremely well and we’ve added several hanging baskets with impatiens vinca to the front deck. For my birthday, my mother bought me several nice perennials that need to be planted, too. And we bought two orandas for our small pond.