we are very hopeful about our garden this year. being so new to this, i am trying to be realistic and not get too hopeful. but if this year goes well i have BIG plans for next year.
we are going with the square foot gardening method. we are too busy and too lazy to attempt growing anything but weeds in the clay soil we have here. so, hopefully having raised beds will help in this department. we had a hard time picking out what we would grow. we tried to keep it simple and plant what we thought we could grow well. i hear people say grow only what you will eat and the trouble with that is that we would eat everything. we let henry choose some things to grow - he chose pumpkins, peas, and apparently threw in some seed packs of cactus and foxgloves while we were at the plant nursery (i discovered this today when i was writing down everything we were going to plant).
we are also hoping to produce a variety of greens, tomatoes, radishes, beets, strawberries, carrots, cucumbers, a few herbs and i think that is it so far. more than enough for us novices i think.
the other day the prepping of the soil was done and tonight is the night we plant most of it.
some things i think need to wait a couple weeks.
we'd love any advice or good stories from your gardening experiences.
what are you growing this year?
we had a raised-bed garden at the school and it did wonderfully -- we turned over the dead plants every fall and let it rot all winter and after a couple years you could dig down really deep and it was all great soil.
ReplyDeletewe are lazy gardeners. we plant vegetables and flowers mixed together in borders. this year i'll have tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, green peppers, hot peppers, cucumber, zucchini, eggplant, and .. not sure. i really want to have watermelon and pumpkins, but the vines go everywhere and i don't want to weed a whole *patch*, if you kwim. plus we have garlic chives, sage, basil, oregano (a few varieties), thyme, lambs ears, etc., and we'll plant cilantro. i love herbs!
We have great success with lettuce and it tastes the best. Radishes are great too, as they come up quickly. Especially good if you have little people around. Green onions too. Oh and peas.
ReplyDeleteI am going to do my tomatoes in pots. I also grow my herbs in pots.
I like marigolds around our garden beds, a great natural bug repellent. Be sure to plant them by seed though. The ones bought in pony packs will do horribly compared to those grown by seed and already acclimated to your region. And, as I learned last year, don't be too disappointed if your strawberries are not very productive this year...apparently they do better once they're established. I am looking forward to this years strawberries, they are already growing like crazy!
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