Planning the garden

It's time for some organized planning. I've struggled with how to keep my thoughts in order with so many beds to lay out using the square foot gardening method. I decided on a plan to have two large gridded sheets. It naturally worked out that one sheet covers most of the early spring plantings and the other the later spring plantings. I can use the see-through vellum to overlay succession plantings for the next go round. I tried to keep track of everything on the computer but I just couldn't coordinate well enough between the actual planting into the keyboard.

Finishing the planting of bed J (lower right on the sheet above) was the focus this weekend. I had half of the bed completed but was afraid to tackle the rest because I knew what was lurking underneath.

The bed from hell. These are roots of a certain pesky weed which I can't remember the name. And these are likely those weeds that just multiply when you break the root in two. Sigh. I did my best but at least I know I won't be planting any carrots here! I first sowed one more row of shelling peas just in case 132 plants aren't enough. Seriously, they say 170 for a family of four. We'll just see!

Then onto the weedy bed. It will be a guess just how much sun this bed gets in the full summer. I think a fair amount. There's a cedar tree just south of it that blocks out most of the sun in the winter.

I hope to save this leftover chard in the foreground. I transplanted two spinach plants over and planted two more squares. The bed will also have lettuces, radishes, kale, beets and flowers. And a surprise awaited me in the compost pile. A rapidly growing rhubarb plant which I did my best to salvage for another bed that already had the rhubarb.

I suppose in my haste of weeding beds last fall I chucked it before I knew what it was. We'll see if it survives although I'm sure any plant would be happier growing in pure compost.

Every Gardener's January: Reading

I've spent most of this month reading up on edible gardening and am now in the planning stages of what to plant and where. There are several books that have stayed by my side this January. My most used reference is How to Grow more Vegetables by John Jeavons. I kept seeing this book in stores but felt I had enough garden books already. When I realized the previous owners used this as a reference, I knew it would be a worthy addition. It explains a lot about why my garden is planted the way it is. And now that I understand, I can't imagine changing it.

I've had a really old, dog eared copy of Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew on my shelf for years. I would love to have the new edition, shown here, with much better pictures but the text seems the same so I can't really justify the upgrade.

Square foot gardening is kind of a revolution gone mainstream theory around gardening. In addition to maximizing space, it saves gardening time by reducing weeds and hopefully pests by using companion planting.

For the eye candy and pure inspiration, I love looking through From Seed to Skillet by Jimmy Williams and Susan Heeger. The gardens featured are beautiful. I love his recommendation on varieties, a lot of my favorites and a few that are new to me.

And while I was at Baker Creek, I had to buy their new book, The Heirloom Life Gardener by Jere & Emilee Gettle. This offers in-depth descriptions about the heirloom seeds they sell.

 

I've got a plan now for the garden, based on all of these books which will be coming soon.