Waiting for germination & build your own salad table

Well, planting season here is done for now. The salad table is sprouting nicely, although the older Ruby red leaf lettuce seed for the center row, had spotty germination. I replanted most of the row today and will hope for a few more seedlings. We built two more raised beds in the front yard this weekend, as well as moving the backyard raised bed frame to the front yard next to the herb garden. The two new boxes were filled with mulch and planted with Swiss chard, carrots, French radishes, and more beans. The moved bed, by the herb garden, was planted with heirloom black zucchini & yellow pattypan squash. I can hardly wait for the harvest.

 I have been harvesting and drying some Greek oregano from the herb garden. The parsley got nibbled by a bunny, so I collared their pitiful remains by cutting one gallon plastic milk jugs and anchoring them to the ground with landscape pins. The parsley seeds did sprout but the bigger plants were for immediate use.

There has been some interest in how we built the salad table. Basically, we used left over 2"x4" boards for the tray and legs. The legs are attached to the inside of the tray frame flush with the top for more stability. Our tray is 36"x22" and the overall height of the table is 32". Once the legs and tray are screwed together, flip it over, legs up and cut two sheets of screening to attach to the outer underside edges of the salad tray. You will need to cut out the corners of the screening rectangle to fit around the tray's legs. The inner screen is just vinyl window screen, the outer support screening is plastic with 1/2" square openings. After stapling the screens to the tray every couple of inches we screwed a center support 2"x4", wide side against the screening. Finally we used two 4"x4" square scrap pieces of  1" thick wood and screwed them into the width-wise ends of the tray to further support the screening. You now have a salad table! **Be aware water does leak through the screening, so place the salad table somewhere you don't mind having splashed water and a bit of mud. Fill it with potting soil and plant. You can now grow slug free/non-bunny ravaged lettuce which is conveniently harvested without bending over. Happy salading!