This end of raised bed #3 has broccoli and cabbage, with little radish and carrot seedlings coming up between them. The white puffy stuff along the one edge is rolled up floating row cover, which gets supported by the black plastic tube "hoops" stuffed down into the dirt, and homemade "yard staples" (which I'm finding it's easier and cheaper to make my own from coarse metal wire rather than buy 'em already made!). I had the floating row cover on during the heatwave a week and a half ago, and will put it up again when I start seeing the cabbage moths flitting around. I'm guessing something green-and-wormy is already snacking on the brassicas - I've seen chew holes!
Oh, and there's some napa cabbage that's tucked in along the one edge - a little crowded by the floating row cover at the moment.
Moving over a little bit in the same bed, you can see from right-to-left (where we left off) are shallots and then onions, all with lettuce interplanted. Along the edge of the bed closest to me I also tucked in the occasional swiss chard seed.
And over a little more are sugar snap and snow peas, interplanted with lettuce. Since there was a row of peas or lettuce that didn't come up, just this week I tucked in kale 'nero di toscana' seedlings that I'd started in the basement. This is my first year trying this kale.
Here's the strawberry patch in raised bed #2. I saw the first signs of bloom-buds this week! The other half of this bed is most likely going to be the cucumber patch.
Raised bed #1 - the only 3ft wide bed (the other three are 4 ft wide). The garlic I planted last fall from grocery store garlic, interplanted with lettuce, and then spinach to the left. There's a couple spinach plants bigger than the seedlings - those are the ones that returned from last fall. Since I took this picture I've finished planting this bed. To the far left are beets, bok choi and swiss chard, and to the right is another batch of lettuce. I think we should be all set on lettuce!
This long area WAS supposed to be the asparagus/raspberry patch last year - but I didn't have it anywhere near ready by the time the asparagus arrived, and NOTHING did well in it once I finally tilled it up and planted it. I take that back. The weeds did GREAT in it! So - change of plans this year! The strawberries got moved out of their in-ground bed into a raised bed. The former strawberry bed continues to be ammended (it's already had 4 tubs of composted manure and a ton of old leaves tilled in!), and will have asparagus and raspberries planted it in later this month. So the old failed bed needs new residents! What could battle it out with the weeds at the back of our property!? As you can see I've started adding some ammendments (I'll spread out the rotting bales of straw from last fall), and will add more manure, and give the thing a couple tillings. I'm hoping to mound it up a bit actually. And then this is where I'm going to plant squash and pumpkins this year! They'll smother out any weeds!
That's all for now! There'll be plenty more gardening pics coming before long, I'm sure!
4 comments:
Geez man. That's a LOT of lettuce. I find our two rows of Black Seeded Simpson + the farmshare do us pretty well for lettuce.
What varieties do best there? Do you do head lettuce or looseleaf usually?
Glad to see you're still sticking to bastard chard. Someone has to grow that crap.
I've always treated them as cut-and-come-again, so the whole head vs looseleaf is really just all looseleaf from my point of view. I don't give them time to really form much shape. However, THIS year I've made certain to space some out better, try to label them better (no promises here), and we'll see if I don't actually let some form a nice, store-worthy shape!
And as for which varieties that do best here? Eh, I dunno - whatever I don't kill by overexposing to the elements just after planting? I do know the black seeded simpson does well. I'll try to get names of some of the successes later...
Jeph doesn't actually plant quantities with "how much can we eat" in mind. That would be too A/R. He plants with 'fill the bed' in mind and then give away his bounty.
He's generous like that!
LOL
Post a Comment