Last year, our garden was pretty pitiful. We planted in the back yard where it got way too much shade and overrun by the animals in the forest who thought our garden was Great. Now - even though our garden wasn't the greatest, we did get some snow peas, lots of chard, a couple of tomatoes, no squash despite several attempts, some really delicious beets and after about 5 months some stunted carrots.
The principle we use is from a book called Square Foot Gardening. The principle is that you plant everything above ground in 4 ft by 4 ft boxes 6 inches deep. You lay out a grid in square foot increments, and you can mix and match what you plant in the same box. 1 tomato to a square or 16 beets to a square. You make the soil out of vermiculite, compost and peat moss. Last year we couldn't find any vermiculite either and good compost was hard to come by.
Well this year we tried doing it a little better and even moved our garden in early June when we moved our household items. It was a crazy amount of work to move the garden, but the results seem good so far. Read below while I introduce you to our current garden.
Above is the whole garden.
We're pretty experimental. One of the techniques we're trying this year is vertical gardening. Yep - that's a watermelon growing up a lattice. You have to support the watermelons or they'll get too heavy for the thing. It probably won't work out, but we'll see.
Now here's a more typical square foot garden plot. In this view is the following: two large sweet basil plants, one purple basil plant, two marigold plants (one you can't see), several radishes (in the front) chard, a couple sunflower, a couple tomato plants, some beets and a pepper plant. I think there might be some rosemary in the middle there. Below is a different picture of the same box.
In this one you can see some parsley, sage and arugula.
I've learned several things from this box. One is that radishes need to not be grown too long. see picture below - these are so hot as to be virtually inedible.
Another is that basil does best when you keep picking the top of it off because it makes it form a bush. One of the basil plants we were ready to give up for dead a couple weeks ago. You probably can't tell which one because it's ultra-healthy now. We're going to try and make pesto.
The arugula has also grown too long, but we'll make a salad and eat it this week.
The sunflower's were Sonora's idea. No flowers yet, but one is over 6' tall now.
Onto the beans. Beans like to be planted when it's warm. These one's were planted about 3-4 weeks ago. Some have already grown almost 5' up the trellis. No beans yet. But boy they look happy.
Below is a side view of the beans.
Below is more pictures of the garden from a distance. What you can't see well is all the tiny pepper plants. They just aren't growing tall. I fertilized them today, we'll see if that helps. We also have a volunteer squash that I think is a pumpkin, and some normal squash and melons, lots of tomatoes, eggplant, okra.
We used to have a bunch of cabbage a brocolli, but some moth like pest just ate it to the ground. We pulled them all up and disposed of them to rid the garden of the contamination.
You may have noticed the fence. We see a couple rabbits most days just contemplating how to get in the fence. They haven't got it figured out yet though.
Believe it or not, next year I hope to about double the size of the garden and get started on rhubarb, maybe some corn, a lot more peas and beans. A lot more carrots and lettuce like vegetables. On the backside of the shop you can barely make out an asparagus patch. We also have a very full pear tree. Others have had cold summers, but ours has been unusually hot and dry. I have to frequently water the garden.
The one advantage with this soil is it takes almost no time to weed. I spend maybe 5 minutes a day weeding, and it's very simple almost zero effort to do.
Looking forward to the harvest.
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