Garden Plan 2014

I’ve been busy this week planning next summer’s garden and loving thinking about being out in the sun and dirt again. I hope the perennial asparagus, fruits, and herbs survive this very frigid winter! Thanks to the internet (and a few books) I’ve learned a few things to incorporate into this year’s plan. Companion Plantings: This is something I’ve always tried to be mindful of. The most important thing seems to be to keep the onions and garlic away from other veggies, especially the beans and peas, except that beets do like garlic. And keep the dill away from the tomatoes and the sage away from the cucumbers. Many plants help each other: basil, parsley, marigolds, and nasturtiums seems good everywhere! Crop Rotation: I’ve always tried to move the plots so as not to plant the same thing in the same place two years in a row. But this year, I learned a little more. I think I discovered that the leaf die off the pumpkins and melons experienced was from a pest in the soil. Several places suggested a 3 year crop rotation. So I came up with this 3 year rotation plan. The garden has 12 annual beds if I count the end of the apple tree bed as #12. So I divided the garden into 4 groups of 3 beds each, based on companion planting compatibility. Each year I’ll shift everything down 4 rows. So where group 1 is this year, group 2 will be next year. Group 1: 2 tomatoes and peppers and 1 potatoes Group 2: 1 melons, 1 zucchini and cucumbers, 1 squash and pumpkins Group 3: 2 Onions and 1 garlic Group 4: “row” crops: 1 carrots, broccoli, beets, chard, bush beans, 1 peas and pole beans and lettuce, 1 corn and wheat. Cross-Pollinating: I was also concerned about the fact that all the squash are together in this plan and I’ve always thought you had to worry about cross pollination and therefore getting weird produce from it. But with a little internet searching, I’ve learned that pumpkins, zucchini, yellow squash, and possibly butternut squash can cross pollinate with each other., but that it only affects the seed, not the fruit. So it’s only a problem is you save the seeds for next year! So here’s the plan!

Pumpkin pie for Christmas

Made a pumpkin pie for Christmas from the last pumpkin from the garden.  (Grew 7.  Used 5 at Thanksgiving luncheon and dinner.  A mouse got one in the garage---ate a hole in the back and gobbled up all the seeds!)
So that's the last of the fresh produce from the garden. But there's still frozen veggies and even some fruit, dry beans and herbs, canned pickles, and preserved jam and jelly!  And there's always memories!

Nov 11: Saying goodbye to the garden, just before the snow!

Went over to the garden.  Picked some lettuce, chard, and spinach from the coldframe, and strolled along the path, remembering and appreciating what abundance had come from this ground throughout the growing season.  But that's about done for this year.  Snow is predicted later today.   

That evening!

Postscript.....Since I'm writing this on December 30 anyway, want to add a note, even tho no picutres, to say that I was still picking greens from the cold frame Thanksgiving week. 
And a resolutin:  next year to write on this blog every time I visit the garden!

Nov 3: Packing up the garden for the season

Took down the trellises from the peapod/polebean bed and the cucumber bed today.  What a tangled mess these new nylon trellises are when you untie them from the supports!  but I finally managed to get them laid out flat and then wound them onto boards for storage in the Ritz, along with all the tools, pots, etc.

Oct 21: Red beets!

Picked the fall red beet crop today.  Cooked and froze most of them.  Ate some...yum!

Oct. 20: More herbs, veggies, and the last of the raspberries and tomatoes.



Basil---very sensitive to frost--always the first to be nipped!

Planted chives under the apple trees because I read it was a good companion plant for apples.  The chives are loving it, or at least loving the space and rich soil of the apple bed.  Hopefully the benefit will be mutual!





still some peppers coming...small, but welcome!



swiss chard, loving the cool weather!

The last of the tomatoes, already not as flavorful as summer tomatoes.   As the photo shows, I hzd to add t-posts for support after some late summer/early fall storms.  Hope I can find will for trellises again next year.  The tomato cages are not large enough for the abundant growth in this rich sunny garden.

The worst looking part of the garden!  The old strawberry bed that never got dug up this year.  Totally out of control with weeds.  It's at the top of the to do list for 2014!

the last of the raspberries!

The strawberry plants love this cool weather.  Lots of great folliage, hopefully building strong roots for a great crop in 2014.  Even a few white flowers and tiny green berries this fall, but we'd need another month of warm weather to actually get red berries.

The cold frame has done a great job of protecting and warming the chard, lettuvce, and spinach.

The asparagus patch looks a bit wild, but I love seeing all that growth, knowing that those "leaves" are storing food in the roots, so we can have an early spring asparagus crop...can't wait!

Oct 20: More herbs!

salad burnett

thyme

lemon thyme

rosemary

nasturtiums!

pineapple sage

sorrell (sour!)



beautiful calendulas!