The garden chairs that never get used.
Here's the biggest secret to gardening. There is no easy time. No space in the season where there won't be as much work. In the spring you're cleaning up and planting. Through the summer you're weeding, cursing raccoons and devising death traps for pests. In the fall you're cleaning up and harvesting.
When I come home in darkness after having spent 8 or more hours planting, lugging, spreading and looking for somewhere secret to pee, friends or family will say to me - Well once you get it all planted you can relax a bit.
My friends and family aren't necessarily gardeners. So they're stupid. They don't know that obsessive compulsive gardening, whether it's edibles or ornamentals, is a 6 month long marathon of non stop work punctuated with the occasional reward. A tomato. Or a rare bloom. Or just a bloom. Or even just a leaf that doesn't get eaten by slugs. We'll take what successes we can get, we gardeners.
It all starts with a garden plan. Or at least it should, I mean gardening is enough of a shit show, why make it even harder by not having a fundamental plan.
So every year I make up my garden plan because even a garden is never perfect in real life, on the garden plan it's always looking lush and orderly. Like I said, we take our successes where we can get them.
This year I'm going to be trying out a couple of new growing techniques which I'll get into later in the season when the time comes to implement them.
For now, I just have my plan. I've planted a few cool weather crops like my kale and swiss chard but in the next day or so I'll be able to load up on everything else. If there's a frost I'll just cover what needs to be covered with row cover.
You'll notice, because you're good like that, that I have several empty spots in the garden. That's because I always fill up my garden then I find something at the nursery or seed store that I JUST HAVE TO HAVE. And then I've already done my garden plan and realize I don't have any space for it. So, this year I've left space in a few beds for new things. One bed will also be used for replanting leeks which is one of the vegetables I'm trying a new growing technique with this year.
The garden is 40' wide by 40' deep and each bed is around 16' long. The smaller beds are 8' x 4' and are official raised beds with wood sides. For those of you who are curious about varieties here's a list of what I'm growing this year.
Potatoes - Kennebec, Russian Blue, Russet, Yukon Gold, Chiefton, and a few rarer varieties like Linzer, Pink Fir, Amarosa.
Flowers - Snapdragons, Dahlias, Cockscomb, Statice, Amaranth, Zinnia, Sunflowers, Gladioli, Dianthus, Sun Balls. Sadly my big hairy balls didn't germinate. :(
Sweet Potatoes - Beauregard
Beans - Emerite, Mascotte
Dried Beans - Wolf's Tongue, Zuni Gold, Blooming Prairie, Stangenbohne Whitsenhausen, Stangenbohne Rassacher Kipfler. - Special thanks to Crystal from Whole-fed Homestead for sharing these rare beans with me.
Beets - Kestral, Detroit Dark Red, Bulls Blood, Chiogga, Golden
Garlic - Music, Russian Red
Leeks - Lancelot
Onions - Copra, Florence (red)
Melons - Cantaloupe (Halona), Honeydew (Diplomat)
Pumpkins - Sugar pumpkin
Carrots - Ibiza, Bolero, Paris Market, Lunar White, Purple Sun
Squash - Sweet Mama, Delicata, Honey Nut, Hopi, Jarrahdale, Thai Rai Kaw Tok
Corn - Serendipity, Honey Select, *possibly* Glass Gem
Kale - Black Lacinato Kale (Black Magic)
Chard - Rainbow Swiss
Brussels Sprouts - (I know) Jade Cross
Strawberries - Charlotte
Broccoli - Green Goliath
*This season I'm mainly growing tomato varieties that are blight resistant
Disease Resistant Tomatoes - Plum Regal, Garden Gem, Garden Treasure, "W", - The last 3 tomatoes aren't available anywhere other than the research program from The University of Florida.
Regular Tomatoes - Black Cherry, Green Zebra, Mortgage Lifter, Black Krim, Speckled Roman, Yellow Pear
There you have it. Not an exhaustive list, but the majority of what I'll be planting and swearing at for the next 6 months or so. You'll notice in the garden plans that my 2 chairs aren't anywhere in them. I rarely use them so I was going to leave them out of the garden, but then I remembered that when people come up to visit me or get some vegetables or flowers they often find watching me work so depleting that they have to sit down.
So I'll be putting the chairs back for them. I'm a gardener. The only reason I'd need a chair is for throwing at a raccoon.
Have a good weekend.
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Love your plan! Love your Tipi trellis, we are doing the Same thing. I read your blogs aloud to my farmer dad. Is this a private space you rent? You were in a community garden before right?
We are a small farm in PA, and we have stuck to our plan 89% so far.....but the onions have been moved, bean varieties are changing as we speak, and deer protection was left out of the plan for the new pasture beds! You rock, we are trying luffa this year because of you!!
Hi Juli! I'm still in the community garden. We all have our own plots ranging from 20' x 20' to 20' x 40'. I currently have 2 side by side plots, giving me 40' x 40'. And yet I still have NOWHERE convenient for my work table. :/ ~ karen!
Hi! New to the blog (discovered it by googling "Can I use a vintage phone for any modern purpose? And finding your most excellent post wherein you explain that, while the answer is yes, the process of coming to that yes is basically a mystery lost to the ancients, which I fully appreciated). Do you use a software or web app for your garden plan? I've been looking for something to help me get a design like the one you have here, and I am very interested. I don't want to give up on my hastily sketched and often abandoned mid-season graph-paper plans, but I'd like to supplement them with something that might remain a little more legible.
Hi Mary Margaret - Yes! I use something called Grow Veg. You can gain access to it for around $25 a year through the Old Farmer's Almanac. ~ karen!
I kept thinking about your post, and my sad attempt at gardening, and decided this year I am going to make more of an effort. I nipped up to Home Hardware and collected a selection of seeds, and spent the whole afternoon out there digging and preparing the ground. Did I ever have fun! It was such a gorgeous afternoon. I'd forgotten how much I love to get dirty and really enjoy a cold glass of water. Thanks for the inspiration, Karen. Hoping for some veggies I can serve with pride. :)
I’m really upset about your big hairy balls.
For tomatoes without blight, I have adopted the SIP bed setup using o pipe, sand, fill tube, drainage spout (YouTube) to grow my tomatoes in. The tomato bed has a 9’ frame around it and it is covered and I grow the tomatoes around string using the single stem method (indeterminate). The plants wick the water from the bottom of the bed and I only have to fill the bed with water every 4-5 days. The point of all of this is that my tomatoes never contract blight - not even during wet seasons like the last one. The sides are open, it simply has an arched ‘roof’ made out of 10’ pvc pipes covered in 6 ml plastic. I have used it for 3 summers so far. For feed, I use homemade compost.
Interesting! ~ karen
I tried to find a photo of the tomatoes last year but the only one that I came up with was one taken in August 2016. This is relatively late in the season and you can see that there isn't any blight.
This one show the 'roof'.
'shows' :)
I have photos of making it. If you are interested, I can email them to you.
HOW do you manage a garden that size?! I plant vegs that can or dry on the vine and buy the tomatoes from the lovely organic Mennonites (!) who's herb seedlings are the sturdiest and their scrumptious tomatoes. (I don't have room to grow the amount of tomatoes I need. I can them).
No mention of Kabocha squash. Anyone?
First one was store-bought org. Oh,my! Vowed I'd never cook a pumpkin pie AGAIN. The flesh is finer, a lot sweeter (I used about 1/4 cup of Agave). As a veg, I steamed it and put it on the plate. Unlike potatoes or yams, it needed no butter OR salt. Then began the search for seeds. China had some thru Amazon. OMG! Ordered, planted and grew. What fruited sure wasn't Kabocha and it sure didn't taste good. What the hey?! The mysterious farmer who sold my grocer his ONE Kabocha has disappeared. Even the farm markets' squash were not the same. Is it a plot by the Idaho potato people? The FDA,KGB, CIA?
I'd love to know of anyone who has succeeded in finding seeds, and growing a lovely, SWEET and fine pulped Kabocha. What that first taste did has set me on a determined search.
As my Aunt Emma used to say, "I'll give you a nickel if you can find it."
Hi Caroline! There are tons of Kabocha squash varieties online. I personally grow Sweet Mama Kabocha along with a couple others. You can get them at Stokes Seeds, Baker Creed seeds, William Dam Seeds in Canada and a few other places. That should start you off. :) ~ karen!
What happened to your big hairy balls??? (I've always wanted to ask somebody that )
HaHa