V is for Voyageur Toque, Viking Hat, and Veggie Gardens

Voyageur toque - Picture courtesy Smoke-Fire.com

Creating and Weeding: Originally I was going to post for "V" day about a Voyageur toque that I was planning to knit.  This was to be a donation for the annual silent auction which benefits a high-adventure camp that E is on the board of.  One of the trips they offer is in the huge voyageur canoe on Lake Superior and I thought there might be interest in a handmade voyageur hat.  Unfortunately, I did not get the project completed in time (full disclosure: I did not even start it.) for a variety of reasons/excuses.  So this post will not be about that.

Minnesota Vikings hat

My back-up idea (I may have had an inkling that I would not finish the voyageur toque) was E's Viking hat I made late last year before he went to the football game.  I have blogged this hat before, though, so that is kind of a cheater post.

I could also have written about volunteer plants but have already done that one, too.

So that leaves veggies, specifically veggie gardens.  A few years we built a small (5'x5' I think) raised bed in the backyard to grow vegetables in.  We packed in corn, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes and carrots.  Most things grew well and we adjusted our planting (fewer cherry tomato plants for one thing) in the years that followed.  Last year we decided to build an additional bed to give more room for the corn and peppers specifically.  And we actually finished it!  We will plant it probably later next month, when it hopefully will be done freezing at night. 

Some people may think we are a bit crazy planting all those things in such a small space but it works.  The weeds are crowded out, it doesn't take up half the yard and other than the peppers getting shaded too much by the tomatoes which grew as tall as trees (I now know to pinch those back), everything did well.  The first year the corn turned out and we had enough.  One of the next years we kept getting summer storms with high wind, hail, etc., and the corn kept blowing down.  Then another year, the deer ate the corn.  We have since added a fence to help discourage the deer.  And now with the new bed, the corn will have more room.  Fingers crossed for our own fresh sweet corn (though last year we got plenty from our CSA)!

Here are a couple photos of the new raised bed.  I promised these last fall after we built the darn thing.  As I have said before, it is big enough to bury a body in there...


The first layer of timbers is in.  You can see the other bed on the far left.  The compost bins and huge volunteer tomatoes are also in this photo, above the new bed.

The new bed is complete! 

Body to be buried?  Nope - It's me! Just to give some perspective on the size.

Until we weed again,
Hallie