The vegetable garden
The cunning plan is to slowly convert the vegetable garden (about 35'x50', fenced in and in almost entirely full sun all the time) to raised beds. There are two gates to the vegetable garden, one of them is a is a "normal" fence gate (came with the house and its fenced in back yard), the other one is a piece of fencing between two gate posts (we segmented the garden off the back yard and planned for the future 2nd gate, but knew it would be a few years before we could get back to finishing it of properly), with the gate elements already present on site (gate on the hoof, as it were), so the actual gate is not far behind. A path from each gate to the opposite fence segments the garden into 4 nice quadrants. The first 4 raised beds are planned for the 4 corners of the intersection of the two paths, for now the rest of the garden is being planted into the ground.
The idea is to add more raised beds each fall and each spring until we have all we want, or we run out of room. The other thought is to plan for tomatoes and peppers in whichever beds are added in the spring, to be slightly less pushed for time. Time will tell how this will all come together, but at least for the moment it seems to be working out okay.
Scheduling and weather have resulted in some delays with tilling, but finally, this weekend, we were able to get it all churned up, removed several loads of rocks (we grow some real nice ones out here) and a good bit of roots etc. Of course this happens each year we till and I suspect we would still be hauling out roots and rocks in 15 years, after continuous cultivation.
We took a gamble (we are either just past or almost past the average last frost date in our area, depending on sources) and planted all the veggies for the year (minus the tomatoes and peppers that we won't get until the raised beds are done).
My schedule does not really work well with raising plants from seeds, so I generally get starter plants. For this season, all of the starters came either in 9-cell packs or peatpots from Bonnie Plants purchased at the local Lowes (not to worry, I support the local family owned nursery with most of my other gardening dollars, but they don't open until April 15th, so they have limited cool season stuff). This years list so far (with numbers of 9-packs planted per plant in parentheses):
cauliflower 'Snowball Y' (2)
broccoli 'Packman' (2)
Chinese cabbage (4 peat pots)
beans 'Blue Lake' (4)
cucumbers burpless hybrid (2)
cucumber bush (2 peat pots)
onion, white (2)
onion, yellow) (2)
peas, sweet (4)
head lettuce 'Iceberg' (2)
acorn squash 'Honey Bear' (2 peat pots)
butternut squash 'Winter Squash' (3 peat pots)
watermelon 'Crimson Sweet' (5 peat pots)
corn 'Silver Queen' (8)
Other than the tomatoes and peppers still to come, I am also still looking for some cantaloupe and I may grow a section of basil, to make some frozen pesto (and fresh, of course). This is our first year trying corn, using starter plants makes that far less intimidating to me than starting from seed. There are some cool season things I would have liked to include but decided not to until later on in the fall (brussel sprouts for example). The lettuce selection is a little dull for the same reason, but I expect we will diversify some more in the fall there as well.
Now here's hoping for the weather and all the other things. As things progress I will post updates, including pictures.
The idea is to add more raised beds each fall and each spring until we have all we want, or we run out of room. The other thought is to plan for tomatoes and peppers in whichever beds are added in the spring, to be slightly less pushed for time. Time will tell how this will all come together, but at least for the moment it seems to be working out okay.
Scheduling and weather have resulted in some delays with tilling, but finally, this weekend, we were able to get it all churned up, removed several loads of rocks (we grow some real nice ones out here) and a good bit of roots etc. Of course this happens each year we till and I suspect we would still be hauling out roots and rocks in 15 years, after continuous cultivation.
We took a gamble (we are either just past or almost past the average last frost date in our area, depending on sources) and planted all the veggies for the year (minus the tomatoes and peppers that we won't get until the raised beds are done).
My schedule does not really work well with raising plants from seeds, so I generally get starter plants. For this season, all of the starters came either in 9-cell packs or peatpots from Bonnie Plants purchased at the local Lowes (not to worry, I support the local family owned nursery with most of my other gardening dollars, but they don't open until April 15th, so they have limited cool season stuff). This years list so far (with numbers of 9-packs planted per plant in parentheses):
cauliflower 'Snowball Y' (2)
broccoli 'Packman' (2)
Chinese cabbage (4 peat pots)
beans 'Blue Lake' (4)
cucumbers burpless hybrid (2)
cucumber bush (2 peat pots)
onion, white (2)
onion, yellow) (2)
peas, sweet (4)
head lettuce 'Iceberg' (2)
acorn squash 'Honey Bear' (2 peat pots)
butternut squash 'Winter Squash' (3 peat pots)
watermelon 'Crimson Sweet' (5 peat pots)
corn 'Silver Queen' (8)
Other than the tomatoes and peppers still to come, I am also still looking for some cantaloupe and I may grow a section of basil, to make some frozen pesto (and fresh, of course). This is our first year trying corn, using starter plants makes that far less intimidating to me than starting from seed. There are some cool season things I would have liked to include but decided not to until later on in the fall (brussel sprouts for example). The lettuce selection is a little dull for the same reason, but I expect we will diversify some more in the fall there as well.
Now here's hoping for the weather and all the other things. As things progress I will post updates, including pictures.