The Garden Plan – 2014

It’s APRIL and I for one am very happy to see it arrive. Time for garden plans!

About a week ago, I posted about our greenhouse repairs and had hoped to have it done by now but mother nature decided otherwise. We were not able to finish this weekend due to the buckets of rain (and 30 mph winds), so I decided to put the final touches on the garden plan for this year instead. Last year was a year of many firsts for me; the garden being one of the bigger ones. I used (and still do) a program from the Farmer’s Almanac to do my garden planning with. It tailors itself to your area and USDA Zone for planting. It is also very easy to use and at $25 a year, I felt it was worth the $2 a month for all this program does for me. It gives you a plant list and timelines (again, based on what zone you are in) for when to plant indoors and out. The grid tools are great for plotting out your exact set up. You can see how I am also able to place the icons for plants in the areas I want. What is also does it tell you how many of those plants you can fit in the area.

We are expanding what and how much we are growing this year. With the addition of another 8 ft x 2 ft cold frame, we are adding in beets, red onions, dry beans (pinto most likely), and potatoes.  We are NOT growing celery this year and plan on letting the strawberries go wild in a path close to the garden area. We have seen several posts lately about using gutters to suspend and grow your strawberries in that we may try but at this point, strawberries are not a high priority. With all of the blueberry, salmonberry, and huckleberry bushes around the property and all over the island, we would rather focus our efforts elsewhere (for now).

 

 

This is the cold frame planting plan from last year (2013). I learned that I can grow more than I thought in what we now call the “lettuce box.” I also learned that the variety of cucumbers I got (patio snacker variety which makes GREAT pickles) needed to be trellised or otherwise propped up to get more out of it. This year they are coming inside the greenhouse and will have the proper supports in place. I have visions of at least a case of quarts of pickles this year.

Last year I was basically just trying to see if I could grow food at all. Oh sure, I had daydreams of huge bountiful harvests but I was also realistic. Turns out it was better than I expected overall. Easily 10# of carrots, 3+ produce bags of green beans, fresh lettuce all spring, summer, and most of autumn, plus I learned how much I love peas. Until I grew my own, I really had to love for peas regardless if they were frozen or canned. Canned especially just tasted gross to me. We did not grow enough to jar up and the slugs had their way with them too (see Slug Battle 2014 for more information on that fiasco) but all that will change for this year.

I cannot help but smile when I look at this picture. For reference, South is to the left and we get wonderful sun exposure. I did research on what plants did well together, which ones needed afternoon shade, and which ones love the full sun. I learned that slugs do not care for garlic or onions much during last year’s growing season and switched things up to take advantage of that. Absolutely everything is covered either in the greenhouse to the left or in the cold frames to the right. The one exception would be the potatoes. Even in our rainy climate, potatoes love it here and go crazy if left to it’s own. A family story I have heard many times is about a potato patch my husband’s grandparents had. He was young, maybe 9 or 10 and was told by his grandma to pull up the patch. “Make sure you get every one of them! We don’t want them to come back,” he was told. So he goes out and pulls up the patch, promising he got every single one. It took 3 years after that to get them all! These were not covered or protected – merely planted in the soil with little amendment added except for the yearly overall fertilizing. Like strawberries, they thrive in this environment and can be left to go wild.

 Learn how to pickle food in a single afternoon! “A Primer on Pickling”  is now available on Kindle for less than a latte!

We are very excited for the upcoming season and I am hopeful that my experiences from last year will help us be more successful this year. I am looking forward to having far more jars lining my pantry shelves, not to mention the lowered food bills. We will keep you updated with the progress of the garden all the way through to preserving the harvest. I welcome all comments, suggestions, and questions you may have! Happy gardening!