Winter crop planting - weekend two

Thanks to my loving husband, I've been able to spend amazing amounts of time every weekend tending to the garden. He knows there are intense weeks and then weeks with nothing to do. This was one of those intense ones. He whisked off our daughter for lots of fun time with dad while I plugged away at mostly installing irrigation in the new beds ... my poor fingers and my back! This weekend started a little early with a Friday to myself planting the root vegetable beds, H and I. But first a check on my lovely olive tree, which I really, really need to repot. I naively bought a Mission olive when we first bought the house (one of the biggest olive varieties there is!) because I've always wanted an olive tree. I quickly realized I had no great place to plant it without blocking out all the sun. So for the meantime, it sits in a pot to keep it under wraps. It's so beautiful, I can't part with it!

Back to the beds. And the irrigation lines. So, so many irrigation lines to install. I wasn't too thrilled with the circular nature of the main tubing the gardeners laid out for me as a base but I'll have to live with it for this season. It really eats into my planting areas around the edges as you can see below. But at least no more tripping on tubing, it's all underground now!

These diagonal beds hold carrots, turnips, daikons and french breakfast radishes for now with more coming soon.

And then I moved onto the legume beds, well, two at least. The teepees will support even more english peas (I can never have enough of these): purple podded and Lincoln. Plus some spinach on the south side of the beds. My spinach grew so well last winter so I'm hoping I get lucky again. Favas will grow in the other legume bed and will be planted next weekend.

And my seeds from last weekend are already peeking their heads up. The Komatsuna I planted alongside the bok choi is doing well so far. It's sometimes called a spinach mustard and is a member of the turnip family. Throw the crop rotation out the window trying to classify that one!

We have two more figs ripening on the Black Jack fig tree this year.

And then there's the flower beds. So barren right now with only some baby agave and a leftover planting of Tall Telephone english peas around a teepee. There is so much work to do here and ideally, perennials and natives need to be planted right now!

Winter crop planting - weekend one

Time is of the essence now. With the first frost date happening now, I'm in a rush to plant as much as I can before it's too cold for seeds to germinate. I likely cut it too close due to the late start on the garden remodel, but they're mostly just seeds so I'll just be out a few dollars if they fail.

My favorite beds are 4'x8' long and situated close to the house. White and
yellow peach trees flank the north and south side of the beds with a new seating area beyond.

I've divided the ten raised beds (labeled A-J) into four rough quadrants for an annual crop rotation. I will also use the square foot gardening method for the majority of the beds. I've had a lot of success with it over the past two years even though people think I'm crazy when they see all the grid lines made with sticks. It works incredibly well, especially if you have a small garden. The rewards are higher plant production, fewer weeds, less water usage and an easier way to companion plant. It's become so popular that even the online garden design programs now offer it as an option when laying out beds.

Bed J: Alyssum on the corners (bees love this and I love the scent), chard and
bok choi in the middle. Broccoli di ciccio is along the back.

Bed J, above, was the first bed I planted. The bed diagonally to J, Bed G, is planted similarly but with different varieties of bok choi and chard. I bought starts of some of the chard and broccolis this year. All of the bok choi is from Kitazawa Seed Company, which specializes in Asian vegetables. I cook a lot of Japanese dishes so I can never have enough Asian ingredients to cook with.

Bed G in foreground: More alyssum, with different varieties of chard and bok choi in
the middle with calabrese broccoli along the back. I couldn't resist buying some Romanesco
broccoli as well. I might have overdone it on the broccoli!

On the side of our property there was once a decrepit old arbor that hid a beautiful climbing tree that buzzes with bees during the height of summer. We kept the tree but we're still not exactly sure how this area will develop. For now, we've handed it over to our daughter. She asked me to make her a teepee of english peas, her favorite vegetable. She can't wait to sit inside it and eat peas off the vine. This will be another experiment as this area only has partial sun but we'll see what happens.

Tall Telephone english peas were planted around the teepee.

The beds I plant next weekend hold the root vegetables. Once again, cutting it close but these are all going to be seed planted.