Tom got the garden tilled Saturday. It is about 24'x36' and we are planting traditional rows this year at Tom's request. I love my lasagna/square foot gardening, but the garden where I have done that in the past is currently occupied by goats, and Tom was feeling nostalgic and wanted to see a traditional row garden, sooo... here we go! Hopefully it will work out well. I am a little nervous since it is a new spot and method I haven't used in years.
Heather planted spinach, lettuce and peas in the L-shaped beds of the small garden on Saturday also. A bit later than usual, but the weather has been irrational lately - frost and 40 for the high and then 80 the next day. They may still do fine.
Today the girls and I planted out the early crops: lettuce, cabbage, onion, beets, carrots, eggplant, kale, collards, broccoli, cauliflower, cucumber, swiss chard, and brussels sprout.
I used a garden planner software which I found very helpful and less time consuming than my own drawings and spreadsheets. It can be found at this link. I am going to try to figure out how to post a screen shot of my plan here, but haven't yet had time.
This morning, I also tilled up most of the side yard and this evening Will planted grass seed for us! The grass was pretty much gone after the chickens ate away at it all fall and winter. I look forward to some nice green grass. He had such fun running the spreader around - it may not turn out exactly uniform, but he got the job done. :-)
A couple weeks ago, we were given quite a group of thornless blackberries and some black raspberries. We put the blackberries adjacent to the small garden where the others were, and ended up adding some fenced area as the deer had already found them. We planted a long row of raspberries behind the house, running parallel to it and coming up to the clothesline and adjacent to the kiwi arbor. They seem to be doing very well and have not yet been found by deer.
We are going to be on vacation soon for 10 days and I can't wait to come home and see how things have grown. A good friend is house/animal sitting for us and will water the garden and yard too. It will be fun to be surprised by the growth when we return!
Showing posts with label Small garden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Small garden. Show all posts
Monday, April 11, 2011
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Garden update
Well, the gardens have mostly been tended by my children the last month or so as we have been finishing a remodel in the house and busy with company visiting. I went out this evening to get a peek at how things were doing. It is a jungle in there! The spacing of the plants is working fine, hardly any weeds and things are growing beautifully! It is incredible how tall the corn and tomatoes and pole beans are, like 10-12' each! The raised beds and close planting prescribed in the square foot gardening method have worked out wonderfully - we have harvested tomatoes, beans, swiss chard, zucchini, cucumber, and peas so far - that is the good news. :-)
The bad news is that I didn't follow directions very well on how far apart to put the *beds* - as in there is NO walking room in there between the beds since the plants have grown SO much! It is hard to imagine when you are planting little seeds that things will grow THAT much, but they have and it's wonderful - but now it's difficult to get around in there. Another difficulty has been the tomato stakes - I had put off getting stakes and wanted to find a cheap solution, just ended up using long sticks - which have rotted and broken and were not tall enough (who knew 10-12' would be needed?) - so the tomatoes are everywhere, literally.
When I went in this evening for the first time in several weeks, it looked like a herd of elephants had tried to squeeze through. The kids had told me that they knocked over the pole bean teepee trying to reach ones off the very top, I had imagined it leaning, but it was actually on the ground and after trying unsuccessfully to right it - I just pulled them all up. I now have a free bed to plant a fast-grower or a fall crop. It also gives more room to get to the bush beans and the tomatoes. I also harvested the rest of the chard and cut most of the dill to hang and dry. I found a cauliflower! I had almost given up on that, so was happy to discover it. The carrots are getting big and the corn is getting close to harvest.
The small garden has been doing fine, even without us ever getting that fence up. There are a couple large pumpkins growing, and I found a little yellow squash started. The watermelon plants are kinda small still, but starting to flower. I should add some fertilizer to all of those beds. The potatoes look great and I did end up getting about 10 small asparagus sprouts after all.
In the cold bed, the cabbage is finally starting to form heads and there is a small broccoli on the plant that is remaining. There are also a couple of lettuce heads that I had planted later that are getting bigger and haven't bolted (yet!).
The strawberries are doing wonderfully! They actually have put runners out all over the place and I need to go cut them so they can grow good roots and not spread quite yet. I look forward to yummy strawberries next year!
Weeds have taken over much of the flower beds, but we did get some lovely blooms. We have been struggling with a puppy who likes to roll on plants and has flattened several things - even eaten some rose buds! The herb bed has not had much attention this year at all, but the oregano and sage in the main garden has done well and I may try to move some of that to the herb bed to see if it will come again next year. I hope to plant some more bulbs in the fall and increase some of the flowering time and beauty toward the front/driveway side of the house next year.
The bugs have been a nuisance at best. The hornworms and squash bugs being the worst so far. Japanese beetles have not been as bad as previous years. I will post later the details of the sprays/powders I have found helpful.
So, that's a summary report. Will get more pics and report back on harvest and storage later.
The bad news is that I didn't follow directions very well on how far apart to put the *beds* - as in there is NO walking room in there between the beds since the plants have grown SO much! It is hard to imagine when you are planting little seeds that things will grow THAT much, but they have and it's wonderful - but now it's difficult to get around in there. Another difficulty has been the tomato stakes - I had put off getting stakes and wanted to find a cheap solution, just ended up using long sticks - which have rotted and broken and were not tall enough (who knew 10-12' would be needed?) - so the tomatoes are everywhere, literally.
When I went in this evening for the first time in several weeks, it looked like a herd of elephants had tried to squeeze through. The kids had told me that they knocked over the pole bean teepee trying to reach ones off the very top, I had imagined it leaning, but it was actually on the ground and after trying unsuccessfully to right it - I just pulled them all up. I now have a free bed to plant a fast-grower or a fall crop. It also gives more room to get to the bush beans and the tomatoes. I also harvested the rest of the chard and cut most of the dill to hang and dry. I found a cauliflower! I had almost given up on that, so was happy to discover it. The carrots are getting big and the corn is getting close to harvest.
The small garden has been doing fine, even without us ever getting that fence up. There are a couple large pumpkins growing, and I found a little yellow squash started. The watermelon plants are kinda small still, but starting to flower. I should add some fertilizer to all of those beds. The potatoes look great and I did end up getting about 10 small asparagus sprouts after all.
In the cold bed, the cabbage is finally starting to form heads and there is a small broccoli on the plant that is remaining. There are also a couple of lettuce heads that I had planted later that are getting bigger and haven't bolted (yet!).
The strawberries are doing wonderfully! They actually have put runners out all over the place and I need to go cut them so they can grow good roots and not spread quite yet. I look forward to yummy strawberries next year!
Weeds have taken over much of the flower beds, but we did get some lovely blooms. We have been struggling with a puppy who likes to roll on plants and has flattened several things - even eaten some rose buds! The herb bed has not had much attention this year at all, but the oregano and sage in the main garden has done well and I may try to move some of that to the herb bed to see if it will come again next year. I hope to plant some more bulbs in the fall and increase some of the flowering time and beauty toward the front/driveway side of the house next year.
The bugs have been a nuisance at best. The hornworms and squash bugs being the worst so far. Japanese beetles have not been as bad as previous years. I will post later the details of the sprays/powders I have found helpful.
So, that's a summary report. Will get more pics and report back on harvest and storage later.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Small Garden
Asparagus bed ~ 10 little shoots, need to add more composted soil
Pumpkin side of L-shaped bed
Yellow squash and Watermelon side of L-shaped bed
Potatoes
Sunday, May 24, 2009
"Small Garden" Tour
This is the "small garden". We have not yet gotten the fence around this one, hopefully tomorrow. I am hoping to add 2 blueberry bushes soon to the center of this garden, and the vines should fill it up and climb the fence once it is there.
This is the L-shaped bed that has now been planted with (closest to farthest) 9 yellow crookneck squash, 4 sugar baby watermelon, 4 moon and stars watermelon, 6 amish muskmelon, 4 sugar pie pumpkin and 2 big max pumpkin. The wood you see sticking up behind is the potato bed.
Domestic blackberry, the largest of the three and is in the corner nearest the L-bed.
Second largest, in center of fence wall-to-be.
Smallest of the domestic blackberries, in corner near asparagus bed.
I didn't get a pic of the asparagus bed, at the end near the gate -
it is a long, deep bed that is showing no signs of asparagus yet! :(
This is the potato bed. There are about 7 vines coming up, I am going to add straw as they grow and hopefully be able to easily harvest the potatoes at the end of the season. I have never grown potatoes before, but hopefully this above-ground method works!
Next time there should be a fence and hopefully blueberry bushes, and some weeding done.
This is the L-shaped bed that has now been planted with (closest to farthest) 9 yellow crookneck squash, 4 sugar baby watermelon, 4 moon and stars watermelon, 6 amish muskmelon, 4 sugar pie pumpkin and 2 big max pumpkin. The wood you see sticking up behind is the potato bed.
Domestic blackberry, the largest of the three and is in the corner nearest the L-bed.
Second largest, in center of fence wall-to-be.
Smallest of the domestic blackberries, in corner near asparagus bed.I didn't get a pic of the asparagus bed, at the end near the gate -
it is a long, deep bed that is showing no signs of asparagus yet! :(
This is the potato bed. There are about 7 vines coming up, I am going to add straw as they grow and hopefully be able to easily harvest the potatoes at the end of the season. I have never grown potatoes before, but hopefully this above-ground method works!Next time there should be a fence and hopefully blueberry bushes, and some weeding done.
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