Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Mid-May Garden Update

It has been a while since I wrote a whole garden update. My garden is laid out with 11 beds 3' wide and about 25' long. I have one 6 food bed (Bed 12) at the northern end which is for perennial vegetables (and unplanned surprises). So far I've dug 6 and 1/2 of those 11 beds so I'm more than half way done!

For convenience I'm number the beds, Bed 1 is the southern most, bed 12 the northernmost because that's the way they appear from the house.

Bed 1 is for lettuce, carrots & beets. I have the cold frame which has been giving us plenty of lettuce, arugula, and tatsoi.

My kale is temporarily in Bed 1 until it's final spot is dug. I have some Red Russian Kale that over wintered from the previous owners and is currently going to seed. I'm expanding my seed collection.
Baby lettuce is just too cute.I've recently seeded red leaf lettuce, carrots, red and yellow beets, bright lights chard, and cilantro and sesame seeds in this bed as well. It's getting close to full.

Bed 2 is my onion bed. 2/3 is planted with my 300 or so onions. 80 are white, the rest are yellow. The last 1/3 has a row of All Blue potatoes which just sprouted. There is room for something else once the potatoes are hilled up.

Bed 3 is only half dug. It will be for summer and winter squash which are not yet in the garden.

Beds 4-6 are yet to be touched. They are for fall brasscias, peppers, sweet potatoes, tomatillos and other warm weather crops, and more squash. They are all the green weeds in the middle of the picture that I still have to conquer.

Bed 7 is dug and planted with 10 pounds of yukon gold potatoes. They are just beginning to sprout.

Bed 8 is my other brassica bed. It has the two row covers. I had to buy brussels sprout (12) and broccoli seedlings (6) because I left mine in the closed cold frame last week and they dried out and fried. This week, I also planted bok choy and chinese mustard greens my sister sent, along with dill and broccoli rabe. I also transplanted volunteer chamomile between the Brussels Sprouts.
Bed 10 is my tomato bed. It is dug and has 4 red walls of water with two early Chelsea Cherry and two Green Zebra tomatoes. They have buds developing. We are approaching our last frost date and I'm hoping to have my husband help me build a frame this weekend for training the tomatoes and we'll get the rest of my 50 some tomatoes in the ground next week. Here are some of the tomatoes taking in some sun this week to prepare for the move out.
Bed 11 is my beans and pea bed. You can see the posts along the whole bed and the chicken wire strung between them. At the far right side, I have Sugar Snap peas and Coral shell peas, along with some radishes. They are beginning to grab on to the chicken wire to climb.
Bed 12 has an assortment. I have 5 Heritage Raspberry plants, 2 small rhubarb, 1 sorrel, 14 volunteer garlic which I transplanted, and 7 Irish cobbler potatoes which were a gift along with the All Blues. I also have some volunteer strawberry plants which I transplanted there. There is a 6' by 8' section which I am reserving for a future asparagus patch.

So that's the garden currently. I have squash, cucumbers, eggplant, tomatillos, peppers, tomatoes, melons and flowers under the lamps waiting to get transplanted out once it is safe. And I have 4 and a half more beds to dig to be able to plant them out. I think I'll have to follow other bloggers leads and update in sections from now on.

4 comments:

Marcia said...

You have done a lot of work so far. It's looking and sounding good.

miss m said...

Such a wonderful and productive space you have. I see reward written all over it. Great work !

Dan said...

Your new garden is huge! Looks great.

Daphne Gould said...

Oh that looks like work. I'm not looking forward to putting in my garden. I want the garden, but new gardens mean a lot of sore muscles.