The Garden (Sunday, May 29, 2011)

The entire plot from afar.  I have tried to make good use of space by going vertical.  These are 10 ft plastic rain gutters screwed to 2x3s with nylon netting behind them.  The gutters are about $5 apiece.  Wood of this size is pretty cheap.  The netting was a bit more, but allows for vining plants (beans, peas, cucumbers, tomatoes, etc.) to climb up.  

Starting at the east side of the plot I have several varieties of tomatoes, peppers and eggplants.  There are also marigolds, and a spinach patch.  I harvest from the spinach patch about every two weeks at the moment by clipping the larger leaves.  It provides a lot of food, but I'm told spinach dies out when the heat arrives.  At that time, I will replace this area with something else, perhaps swiss chard.

Moving westward, we can still see the spinach, up close and blown over due to wind.  The peppers are behind the spinach.  There are also snap peas vining up the back, near the short stick in the ground.  Also, here you can see most of the herb garden which is full of goodies, with Snots the Snake standing guard (yellow).  There is also a prominent onion patch in which I have "Candy Apple Red" and "Spanish Yellow" onions planted.  The gutters above have some chives and scallions.

Here I have a cage that I built to protect small plants from the rabbits and birds.  Underneath is a rubber maid covering in "floating row cover" to keep out insides and maintain humidity.  Inside the rubber maid are several small pots in which I am growing seedlings for corn, edamame (soybean), broccoli, cauliflower, broccoli raab and a few melon varieties.  I will let these grow for awhile and transplant them later after harvesting other crops.  The open space here has not been designated yet.  It may be a good place for melon, which will take over a large area.

This is the western end of the plot where I have all of my Brassicas planted.  Brassicas are things like cabbage, broccoli and all the other things kids don't like.  They require lots of nutrients from the soil and are highly nutritious as a result.  I have one row of broccoli (left most) a row of white cabbage, a row of asian cabbage, a row of kale and 2 rows of brussel sprouts.  Underneath all of this foliage are some radishes which take little space and time to mature.   They can be planted around other plants before they are large.  I have planted radishes and carrots all around the garden surrounding other plants, namely my tomatoes.  The tomatoes grow up, not out like these brassicas and will allow the carrots and radishes to receive a good bit of sun through the summer.  In the back  here there are leeks, beans and cucumbers.  In the gutters are various types of lettuce, bok choi and flowers.