We're Making a Round Planter Box Around the Tree...

Recently, my parents have been working on our garden, and I sometimes help them whenever I get the chance. I haven't been as active since I hurt my ankle a couple of months ago because it still sometimes feels funny every time I exert more effort than I have to. However, a few days ago, there was a power outage, and my mom asked me to go out and accompany my father in the garden.

I went there, and my father was trying to cut some wood to build something, so I decided to help him out.

I decided to help him cut the wood to a certain size, then he'd sharpen them on one side in order to make burying them easier. He plans to place it around one of the trees in our garden to create a round planter box so we can plant some water spinach. When my mom and I went to the school garden, we saw that they planted some water spinach in one of the plant boxes and decided to do it as well.

Our landlady gave us some water spinach to eat and to plant here. Currently, my mom has placed the stems in water, and they have been growing well. The roots have come out, and some new leaves have even started growing, as you can see in the photos above. It will be ready to plant soon. But for now, let's finish the round planter box.

While I continued cutting the rest of the wood, my father started to build the structure... I finished cutting the needed wood in the morning. The power was back by then, and we had lunch, which my mom prepared. In the afternoon, I had other stuff to do, but my father decided to continue making the round planter box, so I asked my mom to document it. Here are some of the progress shots.

These are cut pieces of flat galvanized iron sheet that my father used to place around the round planter box to contain the soil.

When he finished placing the sheet around the planter box, they added some of the leaves they had cut from clearing some areas.

Now, all that's needed is good soil, organic fertilizer, and cow manure. We usually ask some of the neighborhood kids to collect them from the places where cows graze around our area. It's not that difficult to find since a lot of our neighbors have cows.

And once all of those are ready, we can plant the water spinach. Also, I asked my mom if we're only planting water spinach in that area, and she said she's planning to plant water spinach on one side and, on the other side, some camote tops or sweet potato tops.

Our neighbor once planted camote tops in the area, and there are some of them left in the farther part of the garden, so he plans to get some of them and plant them in the new planter box, so it's easier for us to harvest.

What's nice about having a garden in this area is that some of our neighbors also love gardening, so we help each other out. The next time our kind neighbor invites us to tour her garden, I'll try to ask permission to take photos and share with you here. She's a grandma but is still very active because of her love for gardening.

Anyway, I'll end this post here. Thanks for reading and see you around! I'll update you once we planted the water spinach and camote tops in this round planter box!