Here are the seedlings after three weeks of growth. They are all going strong and should be good for transplanting to larger pots very soon.

Jules and I were able to get the soil into the beds about a week ago and since then the days have mostly been rainy so it has had ample opportunity to settle. Hopefully I will be able to get some more work done on garden-related this stuff this weekend if the weather is nice.

Our area rugs from Flor arrived this week so the sunroom and living room both look a bit more inviting and sound less echoey. Our bedroom now also has a carpeted border running along the edge of the bed so mornings are less cold on the feet. I had wanted to hold off on buying them until we had a bit more money saved up but I got a special coupon for free shipping that overall saved us about $120 so I felt it was worthwhile.

We had a bit of unfortunate news last weekend, when our washing machine began leaking out the bottom and leaving behind soaking wet clothes. Because the washer is not energy efficient and the Harvest Gold dryer is probably pre-’70s and squawks like a goose whenever it runs (we affectionatly call it Robo Goose), we decided it was probably a good move to simply replace them. We got a really good deal at Home Depot and ended up saving $500 outright with a $100 rebate coming from the city for buying a water-wise washer. This will be good in the longrun. Using the Home Depot consumer card gets us 12 months without interest, which we should be able to pay off in about 2 months.

In general are working hard to get rid of our consumer debt and it is looking like we will have it all in hand by mid-to-late April. We have opened a retirement account at work and now a discount brokerage account to begin investing. Once we get some cash saved up we will be able to buy into a mutual fund, which we plan to do directly through Vanguard. I can’t wait for everything to be settled again, but there shouldn’t be too much more waiting on that.

The potting soil has arrived! Yesterday while we were at work, West Seattle Nursery delivered our purchase from the past weekend. Hopefully the weather will be nice enough to put the soil into the beds tonight. After talking with the employees there we determined that creating “Mel’s Mix” from scratch in that quantity would cost upwards of $1000 and besides which they couldn’t accommodate that request with the materials they had on hand (or could order.) This Gardener & Bloome potting soil is organic and contains most of the required materials for a fraction of the price.

Ingredients are listed as:

• Fir Bark
• Forest Humus
• Peat Moss
• Perlite
• Chicken Manure
• Worm Castings
• Bat Guano
• Kelp Meal
• Alfalfa Meal
• Oyster Shell
• Dolomite Limes

Absent in this mix is vermiculite, which is prohibitively expensive. Perlite should do approximately what vermiculite can do for drainage. If not, I can always add some later.

The seedlings I started indoors are well on their way. I had to rig up a barrier to prevent the kitties from eating them. One day in, and it’s done its job so far. Hopefully they will stay away from it.

Well, it’s Friday the 13th and I’m going to talk about how lucky I feel today.

With all the crappy things happening with the economy now I am extremely grateful to be in the position I am and surrounded by the friends and family I have. People are being hit hard with the downturn but luckily we are still doing well.

• Both Jules and I still have our jobs and our company is doing fine.
• We are one check away from paying off the roof work, after which we are free of home improvement debt.
• One more paycheck and all our credit card debt will be gone.
• Our house is in good shape and shouldn’t require any further major improvements for the next several years.
• Our car has only depreciated a few thousand dollars since buying it last year and has not given us any trouble. The car is still fun to drive and at most we only need to fill the tank once a month.
• We set up our Simple IRAs at work to begin saving for retirement, which should begin deducting from our paychecks on March 20.
• We went into the bank to change our money market account to savings so we could get the minimum balance waived and ended up with immediate access to our money plus 2 account upgrades without changing account numbers.
• We are planning on starting an investment account for our own extra money once we have paid off family debts. I am reading about investing and teaching myself the basics.
• We have a small emergency fund started in a “high” interest MMA.
• All of us are healthy and happy.
• Our cats are getting along really well.
• Raised bed gardens are sealed with linseed oil and awaiting Mel’s Mix.
• Seedlings have sprouted indoors.
• We are having all our bills automatically withdrawn so we have no worries with writing checks or remembering to pay.
• We have created a list of “wants” for the coming months so we can properly budget.
• We have been successful in making minor adjustments and repairs to the house ourselves.
• We have been ordering all our groceries from Amazon Fresh and have been successful in cooking dinner each night and eating out once a week or less.
• We have discovered that going out shopping is less thrilling than it once was because we have practically everything we could want.
• We love our house, our neighborhood, and our city.
• Our relationship is stronger than it has ever been.
• Nathaniel has been successful maintaining a long-distance relationship and seems happier than ever.
• Our families are doing well considering difficult times and chatting to them on the phone always brightens our day.

Thank you to everyone who has brought cheer to our lives during these bleak times. Every day I think about the things on this list and feel so grateful for every piece of it. I could never take this life for granted.

This weekend we headed over to Home Depot to pick up materials for building the raised beds. It was hard to find people working the department so it ended up taking awhile, but we left the store with everything we came for–well, nearly. The deck screws we grabbed were not long enough so we had to make a second trip, but no matter, the store is about 5 min away. I was adamant about buying untreated cedar (which I will treat myself with linseed oil) since it’s supposed to be one of the most resilient woods for this application without containing the chemicals of pressure treating that could leach out into the soil, and luckily we found some for what I consider a reasonable price. The lumber dude cut it all for free as well, which was awesome. He said I was the fourth person of the day buying supplies for raised beds and it was only 10:30 AM. That’s really saying something.

Nat and Jules did most of the really hard work in constructing the beds and digging holes since I am not strong enough so I spent most of the time setting up my leaf compost bins and pulling up bricks from the area where we were to place the beds. I quickly discovered that there were a lot more bricks than I expected, and we ended up with 3 massive stacks which I will have to be creative in finding another use for. The only real hassle we encountered was right near the house on the first box because the neighbors’ tree had roots extending into our yard. With a bit of finagling, we were able to wedge it in between the root growth without disrupting or cutting it. This put it a lot closer to the house than I wanted but the gap is still wide enough to get through so it’s not that big of a deal. I am hoping that the roots won’t decide to grow upward into the bed, but I will be putting a weed mat and chicken wire in the bottom to keep pests out from below so that could deter it if it were to happen. The roots were beneath the bricks before and didn’t show signs of pushing up so hopefully it’ll be fine.

As a bit of background, I am planning to use the Square Foot Gardening method that I mentioned previously, albeit slightly modified. The book suggests using only 6″ deep beds for everything but root vegetables (like carrots and potatoes) but I decided that I really wanted the flexibility of being able to plant whatever I want in each garden, especially if it turns out that the position of a box is too bright or too shaded for a particular vegetable. It would be awful if I made a critical mistake in positioning that couldn’t be easily corrected by simply planting the crop in a different location. (Since I am new at this I am bound to make some errors and I want to be able to fix them!) It will be a larger up-front cost than 6″ depth for both wood and soil mix, but it is a one-time cost that will hopefully make up for itself over time.

I also made the decision that starting out I was only going to grow things we currently eat regularly. It doesn’t make much sense to me to grow a bunch of stuff for the sake of doing it so this year we are going to focus on staple foods like carrots, potatoes, lettuce, peas, tomatoes, and herbs. (This way we will have a lot of the things we eat every day, not a huge variety of things we only eat occasionally.) Some of the squares will allow for planting several crops during a season so we can rotate out varieties. Additionally, I plan to incorporate some trellises to the back so I can grow vine crops like cucumbers. I am guessing at this point that if everything goes well we will have more food than anticipated since I tend to err on the side of abundance.

I am very excited about getting started on this and hopefully things will continue to go well! Hopefully this weekend we can go to the nursery and get some soil amendments so I can fill in the beds. If nothing else, I can start some of the plants indoors in the coming weeks!