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My Solanaceae crops begin in Bed 2 with All Blue potatoes on the far left. Then I have a whole row of Yukon Gold Potatoes in Bed 7. At the far back of the garden with the raspberries & rhubarb, I have another small section of Irish Cobbler potatoes. All the potatoes are starting to bloom, and have been hilled twice. I've never grown potatoes before and am surprised how tall they are. Here is the row of Yukon Gold.
IN bed 4, I have a variety of hot and sweet peppers. I planted from a hot pepper mix, as well a some Habeneros. I bought some sweet bell peppers and started some Chocolate peppers.
A few of the peppers are showing signs of buds.
Also in the bed are eggplants which look a little worse for the wear from the slugs.
Finally I have a lot of pineapple tomatillos from Daphne. I heard that tomatillos need support so I have stakes and cages by the ready. However, I noticed today the first bloom on a few plants, so maybe these are more of a short variety. Time will tell.
I also have three small sweet potato vines that I started myself. However they don't seem to be doing much. Finally in bed 10 are my Tomatoes, about 50 of them.
I've let the ones at the end get out of control because these are my early tomatoes. I want more early tomatoes. There are two Sweet Cheslea Cherry Tomatoes and two Green zebra tomatoes in that jungle.
So far there is one green zebra growing and a handful of green cherry tomatoes.
The rest of the tomatoes are getting more strict treatment. I'm pinching out all the suckers and training them around the twine that goes from a stake to the frame.
So far they are doing quite well. I'm sure the warm weather has helped. My other varieties include Amish Paste, Market Miracle, Heirloom mix, Red Zebra, Purple Calabash, and Purple Cherry from China. The Amish Paste and Market Miracle are setting buds that are close to blooming.
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.