Other than tomatoes I'm not planning to add veggies to the garden just yet, mainly because there isn't anywhere that's prepped for growing them. La Musardiere/A Place to Be Idle is finally ready for planting however and lots of winter sown butterfly & hummingbird perennials will get added this year. This used to be a 30 ft. square full of weeds but among the weeds I discovered a half dozen peonies, clematis, 30 clumps of daylilies, Echinacea, sedum and quite a few other perennials. I've since halved the bed diagonally, laid down heavy, corrugated cardboard topped with bark mulch, added the granite bench and more peonies, Russian sage, a pure white rose of Sharon behind the bench and dwarf fountain grass at either end of it.

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I'm going to plant the curved edges either side of the bench with alternating stachys 'Helen Von Stein' and cushion spurge 'Bonfire.' Both are drought-tolerant, low/no maintenance and I think the Bonfire's purple foliage will contrast nicely with the silver stachys. I bought the stachys on Santa Rosa Gardens' half price sale last year and found the Bonfire spurge on a buy-six offer at a local nursery in early spring.

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The edge of the bed is purposely straight so as to make grass mowing easy.

Dear Lavender Lass and Gardenweed,

I guess the important words in your communications are
"planning" and "prepared".

I would say, "Be careful what you ask for!"

Since peony bloom has been light or non-existent since our
yard has gotten shaded over, I requested a 4' x 40' foot strip be dug parallel to the gravel lane to our big 1850 barn. I hoped for it to be done by September. This is an open sunny area which was a large vegetable garden before we lived here and in the early 80s when we raised our kids.
It's been covered with what I call "mowed existence" for over 2 decades.

The tenant who lives in our lower level apartment and loves his country quarters volunteered to do the work.
He got around to the chore in mid June. He got so excited tilling that he asked if he could do a "little" more for garden for him and his wife. (Our veggies were in raised
beds in a deer fenced space). Rodger was enthusiastic, my
86 year old husband got interested, 4 x 40 became 40x 40!!!
Twenty four tomatoes for the neighbors, squash beyond belief, collards, mustard, beets, carrots, etc. etc happened. We are still eating spaghetti squash, acorn and
butternut every week. We harvested greens until after New Year's. We got some green beans but the deer got the ones
I would have had to can or freeze.

It was sort of exciting but certainly wasn't much planned or prepared and of course it is standing there for this year. Peony buds are up.

I didn't do much besides deal with some of the harvest and
plant the peonies when fall came.

Chris N.

Nice looking plan LL. You still did a heck of a lot better drawing it out on paper than I would have! Lol.

I might add a new side "wing" to the other side raised veggie garden. Guess you would call it another tier. It isn't a major addition, but I am still debating if it is a good idea of if it would make mowing that area more difficult. Heck, I'm not even 100% sure what would go into the new wing if I did do it, lol!!

Here is the other wing. I grew lettuce in it last year and it worked great. This fall I poked a few hard neck garlic and walking onion bulbils into this bed. I'm curious to see if lettuce and onions/garlic grow well planted together.
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Donig lots of veggies this year. That reminds me, I need to start sowing my eggplants and peppers soon, so the are nice and large for planting out time. I got a whole bunch of strange and exotic edibles this year in seed trading, Peach/Mango Cucumber (Cucumis melo var chito), Naranjilla (Solanum quitoense), Strawberry Spinach, purple snow peas, and some unusual heirloom eggplants to name a few. Very interested to try these out.

And I will be growing lots and lots of tomatoes. Some in the raised veg bed and then some in the neigbor's yard along the fence. As annoying as he can be, it is neat he will let me grow them there (having a fence there for staking makes it soooo easy to tie them up!) in return for a few veggies now and again.

I also plan to dismantle the veggie garden in the back by the alley. The only thing out there is garlic, onions, and lots of parsley. It is too shaded for much else to grow there, so I will be moving some of the perennials that are not thriving in the front shade garden under the tree to this location. Think it will look a lot nicer than what is out there now.
CMK

I will plant herbs in large pots, they seem to do better that way, in our heat.

Plan to plant onions next week, and of course tomatoes for the 147th time(sigh)! They just don't seem to handle our heat at all, at least for me.

I also plant elephant garlic late in the Fall as an ornamental, it looks neat peeking out among the roses.

LL, nice plan. Can't wait to see it planted later this year. Never heard of purple raspberries.

I seem to be adding more flowers to the garden each year. I figure the butterflies and hummingbirds need food too, so why not share the space with them. Plus it makes the kitchen garden look pretty. I even added a couple ornamental grasses last year. I loved how they looked. The roses are gone from the arbor. I just don't have the love to grow them. They've been replaced with jasmine, honeysuckle, clematis, and Mexican flame vine.

LL, that looks like a great plan.
GW, that area is really shaping up. It looks great!
CMK, Nice that your neighbor is bartering with you! Space for veggies. Seems like a pretty good deal.

This used to be my veggie garden. Window boxes along the fence railing. I had 6 boxes filled with mainly greens and then a few random pots with cukes and tomatoes.
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The fun part was after the lettuce bolted in the later summer I could plant them up with annuals.
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But I did want an "in-ground" veggie garden where I could expand and experiment with seeds indoors over winter. I had many ideas on where to make the bed, but it was amazing how I didn't realize just how shady certain areas of my yard were until I paid close attention to the sunlight with thoughts of tomatoes in my head.

The only logical place to plant a veggie garden was in the cottage area. It is already fenced in, albeit a picket fence, but the deer have never ventured in there, it is in full sun, and it is right outside the door. It took a bit of coaxing to get DH on board with the idea but the thoughts of delicious home-grown lettuce won out!

We converted a couple beds so they'll be ready in the spring. This was the cottage garden before:
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And here it is almost ready for us this spring.
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I still have a 6 X 10 bed to dig up to the left of the octagon. 19" of snow before halloween put an end to that project this year!

I wonder how long it will take for the neighborhood woodchucks to find my veggie garden this spring! LOL!

-Susan, LOVE IT! Such a wonderful transformation. Like that you kept some of the flowers around the perimeter too. Such a convenient place to put it- whenever you want something fresh for dinner you just have to walk out your door, lol!
The amaranthus trailing over the railing is spectacular! Are they IN the pots then? I have been thinking I might want to try growing them in hanging baskets this year to get a similar effect.
CMK

lavendar lass, by the looks of your drawing, if you want to get fancy, you could call your new layout a potager. I created a cool potager on paper, but it wouldn't work in my yard with the sun issues. I do have eight raised vegetable beds and although I am not going to expand, I am going to do better to make sure I fill each square and rotate. You're suppose to be able to get three crops for the year, so I've got to plan now as I'll be planting the spring veggies soon.

There is a forum for potagers here!

Here is a link that might be useful: potager

Lass, love your plan. Lately I've become more interested in heirloom veggies, beans in particular. Since our family has grown up and flown the coop the garden evolved into more of a flower garden. So, now, with my renewed interest in the edible side of gardening I'm planting veggies in any space I can fit them in, no designated area for them just mixed in with everything else. Hopefully it will all pull together and look not too bad.

Annette

All these photos are giving me Spring fever. Love the laid stone gardenweed and everyone else's gardens and projects. Lass, you always reach for the stars. Good luck.

My veggie garden has more or less been put to rest for the last couple of seasons. The soil needs to recoup nutrients and be beefed up again. Right now it's under a layer of leaves. A farmer friend told me that I'd do better to rake those off here in a couple of weeks and not let them lay there so long. The soil will take too long of a time to dry out. I never even thought of that. I plan to work in some manure too and open the area up a bit to let more sun in. Maturing trees and shrubs are crowding in after all these years.

I love trying different varieties of lettuce and greens. Would like to try lemon cukes on the trellis again,too. Tomatoes have not done well for me for the last three season I grew them. I don't plant them in the same place every year but I'm think it's a sun issue again.

this year i am adding two blueberries

mr toad

I love seeing everyone's plans! I am honestly not that much of a veggie eating person, but I started learning how to cook better dinners, so I am working them into my garden. I want to have a couple peppers, maybe a tomato plant for fun (I do love salsa!! ) some herbs. Potatoes would be fun, so would carrots . I would love corn on the cob too!! But I don't know anything about growing veggies. So this summer will be an expirament . I am looking forward to whatever works out for us!

I wonder tho, if I should winter sow veggies or buy them in packs? Haven't decided yet.

lilyfinch - I winter sowed leaf lettuce and a couple varieties of tomato year before last. They were amazing!! The tomatoes produced a ton of fruit even though I grew them in containers that I lined up along the edge of the driveway where they'd get more sun.

Sorry I haven't checked back, sooner. Too cold to dig, but I did 'play' in the garden, measuring and figuring out where the beds will be.

Gardenweed- What a pretty garden! Butterflies and hummingbirds, too...how charming. It seems like the perfect place to be idle and enjoy your garden.

Chris- Well, you did get your peonies...and a lot more! LOL

CMK- I think the new tier sound like a great idea. Fun to have more room for tomatoes, too! I'm glad you get along with your neighbor...maybe they'll want to garden, too.

Ogrose- Would tomatoes do better with a little shade? I know we need full sun, but our summer is much shorter. Maybe the east side of the house, and morning sun, would be a little easier on them?

Natal- I love the purple raspberries. I read about them on GW and found some at one of the nurseries. They start out red and turn purple, but you can eat them either way. More flowers in the garden (and butterflies and hummingbirds) sound very nice. I like roses, but the vines seem like they would be very pretty, too.

Thyme- Great pictures! I really like the changes to your cottage garden and the beds look so ready to plant. Did I mention how envious I am? LOL Your deck is just amazing, too. Such pretty plants, everywhere :)

Bev- Do you have any pictures of your garden? I'd like to see it. Ours is kind of a potager (maybe a rustic potager) but overall, I think of it as the kitchen garden. It sounds a little less formal.

Annette- Sounds wonderful. All the flowers and still food to eat, tucked here and there. You have such a great climate, too.

Schoolhouse- Yes, I do dream big...but what else are you supposed to do, in the winter? LOL Have you tried big pots for the tomatoes? Maybe they would get more sun that way.

Mr. Toad- I love blueberries. They're so easy to grow, have flowers and fruit for the birds (and me) and they are very winter hardy...at least the ones I grow.

Lilyfinch- It might be easier to try a few packs the first spring, to see what you like and what grows well, in your area. Are you creating a separate vegetable garden? If so, then winter sowing might be a great option, since you'd have more space!

As for me, I'll be so busy adding the new beds and finishing the edging on the old ones...I think that will keep me pretty busy, this year. I would like a separate area (fenced in) for larger vegetables, but that's probably going to be a project for next year...or maybe the year after :)

I keep adding new (but small) beds thinking I will have more room for fruit or veg, but somehow they always end up with more perennials. Not sure if it's because it's prettier or because it's easier.

-daisychain (cutest name btw!), I have a similar problem. I CAN NOT plant a bed with a mix of plants and veg because inevitably the plants/perennials with 'take over'! That is why I need separate beds specifically for my veggies and edibles. I have been temped to add a perennial or two to my raised veggie garden (mainly perennials that will cascade over the side of the blocks), but know that is a slippery slope. Once I get one in I will start wondering what this or that would look like next to it, etc. LOL!
;-)
CMK

Daisychain- I have a similar problem...but with roses! I found a nice plan for a veggie garden online, but I keep thinking how great it would be with old garden roses and herbs! LOL
{{gwi:240751}}From Lavender's Garden

CMK- I know we're not supposed to mix perennials and annuals, so don't you think it would be nice, to mix in some roses with the asparagus? Maybe on each corner and around the little bench, in the plan? Maybe some shorter roses, on the front corners...just to balance things out? :)

I added 6 fruit trees.
Planted them in the big veggie garden out back. It is the best place for a small orchard. Sunny location with sandy soil, good drainage and higher in elevation, so late frosts in Spring won't settle up there like they do down in the lower orchard. The wind blows up there too, and that helps prevent frost settling.

The trees are spaced at 15 feet, so there will be room to grow veggies between. I am going to keep them trimmed back to about 8 ft. tall. The trees will provide light shade during midday, and that will protect the veggies in the heat of summer from our southerly hot, drying winds. That's the plan anyway.
I have one peach tree there already and it does really well. I trimmed it back last spring and it is looking good.

I have peaches growing throughout the garden. They are blooming in colors of deep coral pink and soft pink, and soon the plums, cherries and pears will add their white blooms to the garden. The little Apricot I just planted this past weekend has blooms already because of the sunshine and warm weather. They are all so pretty!

As for veggies, the Italian Parsley I sowed in the Rose Garden has sprouted.There will be Hot Red Peppers in there and purple Cabbages with purple Sweet Allysum. There are Leeks (big purple blooms) and garlic (big white blooms) growing in between several of the roses. There are strawberries growing along the pathway, with Love-in-a-mist. Maybe a couple of big pots of Sweet Olive grape-type tomatoes in there somewhere, growing up on pretty supports. The Lemon Cukes will go in at the back and climb up the rose arch. The last time I planted them there, they surpassed the arch and climbed on up into the plum tree! I had to get out the extension ladder to pick the cucumbers! It looked really cool, too.

On the west side, below the rose garden, is a great place to plant the Heirloom tomatoes. I have been composting in there for a couple of years, and adding mulch which has rotted down to dirt, so they should do really well in there. Here in Oklahoma, you need a little afternoon shade for the big heirlooms like the Brandywines, and you need space as they grow very big. This site has everything they need. And thinking one small pie-pumpkin vine. I like the way they look in the flower garden.

I have seeds of Love-Lies-Bleeding. Those are so pretty hanging down over the rails like that. Exquisite! Every year I say I am going to grow them, but I never figure out just where!

Anyway, that is what I have planned this year. Just going to play it by ear as the season progresses. Who knows what the weather will be like this year.

I keep adding so much more food to the garden, I'm worried about having enough room for flowers :)

Well, GGG,
it is easier to eat your veggies than it would be to eat your words - like: "Why didn't I grow more food while I had the chance?"
(wink wink)
I hope I get enough to can this year.

Right now, the Larkspurs that came up from last year's seeds have taken over the Rose & Iris garden and the path too. Just don't have the heart to thin them out yet, but I will have too soon enough.

~Annie