New Garden Update

This week we had a home inspection on the house we are hoping to buy. Everything went well with no surprises. While my husband followed around the home inspector, I measured rooms so we can think about paint and furniture etc. I also took the opportunity to measure the garden. The snow has melted even more since we were last there, and it was easy to see the boundaries now.
I had estimated from my earlier photo that the garden was about 20' by 30'. I was close on the width, but way off on the length. The new garden is 24' by 54', that's 1298 square feet! My current garden is only 48 square feet so that's a 2700% increase! I discovered today that in addition to the three apple trees, there are four small blueberry bushes, and a grape vine on the front fence.

I'd made a rough plan for my earlier estimate but I got to revise it for the additional space. I'm excited that I'll be able have the space to grow summer and winter squash more successfully, try potatoes, and give other vegetables a little more breathing room. I've also laid out space for future purchase of perennial vegetables and fruits like strawberries, asparagus, rhubarb, and raspberries. Even still I have some extra space. I don't have garlic planted this year and I know I will want to have it next year. Here's my rough plans. I'm going to make into rows that are 3 feet wide, except for the space at the northern most end for the perennials. I've divided it up into one foot squares on the excel to think about in the square foot method for area so I have some reference to last year's experience. Shown below it is split into a northern and southern half because it won't all print on one excel page and still be readable. I've spread out my solanaceae , brassiceae, and cucurbitaceae familes so that they wont be as inviting to pests and so that I can more easily rotate crops next year. Here's the plan.

Northern Half

Southern Half

I'm going to have to start a lot of seeds in the midst of moving to fill up this garden. I decided to experiment with sweet potatoes and so have two on the windowsill to start growing slips. They've already sent down some roots in the past week. I'll write more about the varieties of vegetables I'm planning in another post.