Hi, your garden sounds delicious!

here is what i have so far
This year i have built 4 5x3x2(LxWxH) raised veggie beds.My back yard was covered in many types of rock years ago(xeroscaping). And trying to get the yard to a point where i can grow in it has been a nightmare! And so i decided to just build the raised beds. So far 2 are full of dirt and planted with:
Box #1
dragon carrots
short and sweet carrots
candy onions
sweet red onions(bunching)
red garlic
yukon gold potatoes
shallots
Box #2
Bumble Bee beans
Spinach
Lettuce mix from Seed Savers
garlic chives
dragon tongue beans
Blue poded peas
golden sweet peas

The other two boxes i plan to get ready for warm season crops.

havent really started any of my warm season stuff yet.

Hi Anthrogirl,

First, can you tell us what size area you're having tilled up? Also, what kind of soil? Knowing the answer to those two questions will enable us to offer better suggestions.

My garden is about 60'x80' and surrounded by a 7' tall fence to keep the deer out of it. I have mostly wide, raised beds separated by narrow pathways. On the three outer edges of the garden, I have a mixed cottage-style border consisting of heat-tolerant flowers and herbs. Many were planted to attract butterflies, moths and beneficial insects which do a lot of my pest control work for me.

In some areas, the beds are at grade level and are not raised and those areas are reserved for plants like corn, okra and winter squash that tolerate poorer drainage.

I have nine large raised beds, and about half of them are reserved for cool-season crops and the other for warm-season crops. After the cool-season crops come out, they are replaced by warm-season crops.

Currently, bed #1 contains Super Sugar Snap and Sugar Snap peas. They're in long double rows running either side of a trellis. I didn't count them, but I'm guessing there's probably 150 pea plants or so. My goal is to have all we want for fresh eating, and then dehydrate or freeze the rest. The trellis is at the north side of that east-west bed and there's a row that is half red cabbage and helaf lettuce in the middle of the row, about 18" from the pea plants. South of the cabbages, there's a row of chamomile plants, some of which are about to bloom. There's chives and catmint in the east corners of that bed.

Bed #2 is a smaller north-south running bed and it is planted in nothing but Candy and Red Candy Apple onions. When the onions come out in June or July, a fall crop of something else will go into that bed.

Bed #3 is the same size and runs the same direction as #2. It has a border of sage and catnip plants, and then a long row of green cabbage. The final row in that bed is a combination of dianthus, for the flowers, and catnip to attract beneficial insects.

Bed #4 is another bed that runs east-west, but is shorter than the bed pea bed. In that bed, I have two much bunches of onions planted...Superstar and Dixondale's short-day sampler, which is a blend of three onion types. There's a big open area between the onions where I intend to plant pepper plants in late April or early through mid-May.

Bed #5 is very large and will have the broccoli plants, started from seed in paper cups, and almost ready to go into the ground although I'm waiting for the coming cold weekend to pass before I plant them.

The potatoes, and I think I have about a dozen types, are not going into this garden. They are in a new bed outside the main garden and it covers an area that is about 15' wide and about 40' long. I'm in the process of getting them into the ground this week as it has been too wet to plant until now. The ground is still pretty wet, but at least it is now workable.

I can't tell you exactly where the individual warm season crops will go, bed by bed, because I haven't given it a lot of in-depth thought, but the main corn crop will go into a grade level bed at the eastern edge of the garden and the late corn will go into a new corn bed about 60 yards from the 'old garden'. I'll interplant winter squash and pumpkins and pole beans in that 'new garden'.

In the rest of the 'old garden', I'll plant tomatoes (about 140 to 160 plants total, but some will be in containers in yet a different location), hot peppers, green beans (many, many kinds), black-eyed peas, okra, muskmelons, cantaloupe, summer squash, cucumbers and more beans. Sweet potatoes will go into a different 'new garden' bed across the driveway from the old garden.

All my plants are interplanted with flowers and herbs to attract beneficial insects and pollinators, both of which help me to garden almost 100% organically.

My goal is to raise as much of our own food as I can, and last year we had a very good year, but still didn't raise enough to suit me....hence all the 'new gardens' scattered here and there. To meet that goal, I yank out bean plants, for example, when the production starts dropping and put in a succession crop of something else to fill their space. I succession plant constantly and it allows me to get huge production from the space I have. All my plants are planted closer together than is normally recommended in order to get the most productivity out of the space I have.

This week and next, and maybe the one after that, I'll spend the down time that falls between 'cool season' planting and 'warm season' planting, building a new garden for our granddaughter. Her portion of the new garden is likely to be about 15' by 15' and will have raised beds and wider pathways than my old garden. My portion of that new area will be about 15' by about 40' and it likely will be the overflow area where I cram in everything that didn't fit into the other gardens.

I also 'sneak in' very ornamental-looking veggies like Swiss Chard 'Bright Lights' or 'Neon Lights' or Okra 'Little Lucy' or 'Bubba' into ornamental beds, and have anywhere from 40 to 60 containers planned, including some hanging baskets with Tumbling Tom tomato.

All my garden beds are a crazy quilt mixture of veggies, herbs and flowers and I don't waste an inch of space. I have pretty good luck most years. Last year I filled up 3 freezers, a root cellar, and canned about 300 or 400 jars of stuff (I've forgotten how many, but it was a lot). I also dried several thousand bite-sized tomatoes.

There's separate places for fruit, by the way, and I didn't list all the herbs, but they include sage, chamomile, chives, garlic, garlic chives, lemon balm, mint, dill, rosemary, catnip, catmint and about a dozen kinds of basil.

Dawn

Hello, Anthrogirl

It sounds like you pretty well have your plans made. One thing that seems to always get in my way, is wet soil. I try to work on drainage, then amend the soil, then mulch and some type of drip watering system.

I have a 22x36 ft garden and two other 22' rows tilled in the lawn that drains somewhat better than the rest of my lawn.

I do not use raised beds, altho I like them better, because of my age and the possible need to switch back to a low maintenance lawn very quickly.

I have planted onions, spinich, collards, swiss chards and potatoes, but nothing to brag about yet, but I just got out of the hospital Sun. I will get the staples and catheter out on the 25th. I sure hope my tiller can sit still that long.

Good luck with your garden, Larry

My garden proper is 40x60 and I'm working on soil amendments right now. I tilled it in December and again last week. I intend to till two or three more times as the weather warms up with the hope it will be as effective as it was last year in killing the grass. I intend to add 10 tons or so of horse manure and bedding along with the 50 or so bags of leaves I collected last fall and about 30 cubic feet of compost.

After that, I need a fence, or something that will keep the rabbits out. Then maybe I'll plant something. Hopefully I'll be able to get hot weather plants in the ground, but I'm not even bothering about the cold weather ones. For one - the soil's not ready. For two - I tried it last year and lost nearly all the cool weather plants to rabbits.

I have a protected spot I might try some peas in, but again, I'll need a fence before I even bother.

Oh, and for all you regulars, I finally got a job this winter! Good one, too.

Gamebird,

Congrats on the new job! That is wonderful news.

Dawn

Congrats, gamebird!!!!

We have multiple gardens as well, anthrogirl.

The wellhouse garden contains walking onions, garlic, broccoli, cabbage, pak choi, and sunchokes. Once the cool season things come out, I'll grow something vining up the perimeter trellis, maybe cantelopes for this year - or cucumbers.

The lower garden is not yet planted for this year but will have a large stand of dent corn and pumpkins.

The kitchen garden, which I'm in the middle of tilling this week, has a 4' x 24' foot raised bed hubby built a few weeks ago, filled with bulbing onions and the rest of the ground level will have tomatoes, peppers (a few sweet but mostly hot), summer squash, and things like that which need nearly-daily picking during the summer months.

Then there are a few tire planters here and there filled with herbs and strawberries. I've also just received some fig & pomegranate trees that will be potted and live in the garden for summer. The greenhouse houses a few odds and ends during the warmer months in pots. Finally, there are fruit shrubs & trees, more culinary & medicinal herbs, and other bits & pieces planted here and there around the property, but not in proper gardens.

I sometimes have trouble remembering what all is out there. That's not a terribly bad problem to have. ;-)

Diane

Wow you all seem to have very nice extensive gardens! I cant wait to have the arsenal you seem to be enjoying.
Do you all ever come together for a dinner from the garden or something like that? You know to show off our culinary skills! haha ;)

well.... right now we have a 40X60 veggie garden but we decided at the beginning of this year to make ONE more move (we have moved 4 times in the past 4 years) ARRRGGGGG!!!! So this spring I made a promise to myself to ONLY plant what I ABSOLUTELY cannot live without ....... since last year I got crazy and planted so much it felt like it took from sun up till sun down just to harvest it all!!!

But so far I have 12 5 color swiss chard, 117 toms (8 different verities), 8 snow peas, 8 sugar snap peas, 6 collards, 6 spinach, 47 red onions (just regular bunching but I gave my mom some candy red ones that I got from dixondale this spring to try out), 6 edamime soy beans, 20 broccoli, 5 cauliflower, a package of mixed salad greens and 40 carrot plants (if my luck is anything this year like it was last year with carrots I MIIIIIGHT get half of a finger carrot worth from 40 planted) and 15 red potatoes. AND ITS ONLY SPRING!!!!!!!! I havent even gotten to my summer stuff yet. But I just cant turn down the chance to try something else.

I even planted sugar snap peas, dill, sunflowers, arugula and lettuce for my chickens around their fence so they can enjoy some veggies all summer too. Ummmm not like I dont already give them all the cantaloupe and watermelon all summer long that the deer bust open. Spoiled Little Ladies! Hehehe but I just love how they follow me around clucking at me, asking what else i have for them. I would list all of the specific varieties but I dont have them in front of me at the moment. Oh, and thats the veggies..... i just got done making 4 new small beds with orange variegated and yellow cannas in them yesterday, planning on more beds later this week. My mom loves flower gardens and specimen trees so everytime she comes out to my house I feel like a failure that my gardens are bare and dont quite look like hers. Hehehe she felt sorry for me and came over with a very nice bouquet of her gorgeous spring daffodils to display on my kitchen table. She even dug up some tiger lilies for me to plant, I think that was her way of saying I need to add some flowers hahahaha. Ok I think I have officially crossed the line of just rambling so I will stop here!

~Danni Girl

Well, we post recipes a lot, both for actual meals and for canning and other methods of food preservation, and sometimes some folks post photos of meals they've prepared from their produce. Get-togethers are hard because we're so widely scattered. Those of you in cities with several or lots of Garden Webbers inearby could have gardening dinner get-togethers.

For me, my garden is so big that I am outside from dawn to dusk most summer and spring days and cooking is the last thing on my mind. I'm not saying I don't cook but just that I keep it really simple because time in the kitchen keeps me out of the garden. In fact, I have a cross-stitched sampler in my kitchen that says "I'd Rather Be In The Garden" and it's true! Luckily, my DH likes to cook, so on his days off he does most of the cooking while I'm gardening.

We eat our best meals when I'm in the kitchen most of the day canning tomatoes or making salsa or pickles or jam/jelly. On days like that, since I cannot be out in the garden, I'll cook really great meals in between canning batches.

Luckily for me, you can make a great summer meal out of 2 or 3 or more fresh veggies and something truly simple like grilled chicken. So, a typical summer meal might be BLT sandwiches for lunch, and then grilled chicken along with grilled zucchini, fried okra and fresh green beans or broccoli or black-eyed peas or corn for dinner. Many times in the summer I'm happy to have an all-vegetable meal.

Right now, we are working on expanding our one garden area into three separate spaces in the backyard. We just finished expanding the existing garden from 25x25 to 26x40. Unfortunately, there is a row of garlic running right through the middle, so it is divided into four 4x10 and four 4x24 beds. Once the garlic is harvested, we plan on combining them to make four 4x36 beds. This season, the spring crops are in three of the 4x24s--so we have broccoli, spinach, rapini, peas, cabbage, cauliflower, parsley, kale, lettuce, leeks and onions. The fourth bed that size will hold peppers later on. The 4x10s will have all of the cherry tomatoes and a few more peppers.

On the east side of the yard, we are finishing up three 4x26 beds that will hold all of the larger tomatoes. There will be around 60 in that space, interplanted with lots of basil and other herbs and flowers.

And, on the south side, we have just started digging the beds for all of the other warm season crops and our flowers. There will be 6 4x20 beds filled with sunflowers, zinnias, beans, melons, cukes, squash, tomatillos, ground cherries, edamame and okra.

All of these beds are mounded raised beds without borders. The soil is actually pretty decent sandy clay, once you yank out all of the bermuda (a never-ending job!), but there is a thick ribbon of hard clay running right through the new expansion on the west bed that has had to be thoroughly amended and is still a bit iffy. We'll see how it goes, I guess.

If we can hurry up with the preparation in all of those spaces, I'm hoping to get a load of soil into the empty front flower bed and put all of the herbs that I lugged up here from Dallas in there with a few flowers. If not, they'll probably stay in pots on the back patio.

My big goals for next year are to prepare spaces for blackberries and a big perennial bed for asparagus, rhubarb, sunchokes, etc. Even thinking about it makes me exhausted right now, though!

-Megan

Our garden has 4 main sections of 1000 sq ft each--8 50 ft rows in each section. Two of these sections are planted to corn with a row of sweet potatoes in one and a row of melons in the other. The other two sections get everything else. We rotate every year. In addition there is a bed of asparagus 30 by 50 with 6 50 ft rows. We are in the process of taking out the first asparagus bed we ever planted of the same size. A greenhouse and more garden beds are going in there. Then there are 10 beds that are 4 x 12. Some of these have perrenial onions, garlic, and herbs and some are planted to annual herbs and salad crops. There is also space in the garden for a couple compost piles and some flower beds. And one row of blueberries. Outside of the fence there is a fruit and nut orchard. Actually it is the second orchard. The first one we planted there 30 years ago is gone and we have started over. The ice storm took out the Momtmorency cherry last year the last of the old trees. And a fig bush bears well about every third year. Might do better if we protected it.

Oh, wow, you guys! Thanks for all the responses...I have garden envy hearing about all of your huge gardens.
Our lot is half an acre, so I have a lot of room for a garden. My husband suggested 15' x 20', which I thought would be fine. But I measured it out the other day and have decided that will definitely not be large enough! The garden will go against our back fence which runs east-west (it will be on the south side). I think this will give it the best sun in the yard and the fence *hopefully* can provide a little support and protection. The soil is red, red clay and will definitely need a lot of amending. As much as I love the look of raised beds, I am not doing them here. My 13-year old will be in charge of most of the lawn care this summer (he's excited, we have a riding mower) and I know we will both be happier if he can just mow right over the edge of the garden.

I also remembered that I should have included strawberries on my list...I really would rather have a "perennial" bed for things like strawberries and some of the herbs that I want.
I am definitely going to have to start smaller than I want with the landscaping and gardening this year. We've been here since June and I have yet to find a job, which gives me lots of time for gardening, but not very much cash :(
I am also trying not to go too crazy because we will be looking at selling or renting in a few years and I know not everyone likes to garden...
I have also debated whether to plant things like potatoes, garlic, and onion. Lord knows I use lots of all three of those. But I have purchased all of them in bulk here and had a terrible time storing them...ended up not being able to use about half of them because they rotted.

Anyway, thanks for sharing and I look forward to hearing more about your gardens!