2013 Garden Plan

Now that we have four raised beds and a beautiful garden area to grow vegetables in, we've got big plans for 2013. I ordered a ton of organic (some also heirloom) seeds from a couple of different sources. As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm using Smart Gardener to help me plan out my garden this year. I don't know enough about all the different vegetables to know when to start them, what kind of soil they need, how often to water, etc. Smart Gardener takes the guess work out of it all. It is a free service and I'm not getting any compensation for endorsing them, in fact, I doubt very much they even know who I am.

We are going to plant the new garden with the following:

• Artichokes
• Cherokee Trail of Tears Beans
• Rainbow Mix Carrots
• Double Standard Corn
• California Late White Garlic
• Siberian Kale
• Cut and Come Again Lettuce Mix
• Evergreen Bunching Onions
• Sturon Bulb Onions
• Super Sugar Peas
• Crimson, Gold, and Orange Peppers
• Baby Leaf Catalina Spinach
• Rainbow Mix Cherry Tomatoes
• Roma Tomatoes

Here's the plan for all these great fruits and veggies:

We will be building trellises to run from the wall where the beans are planted over to the beds. My hope is that they will climb the trellises so once they are mature, there will be a beautiful living tunnel running along the right side of the garden. I dream big.

I'll be starting some of the seeds indoors in a mini hot-house I ordered from one of the seed companies. It includes a seed tray, a warming mat and a dome to cover the whole thing to hold the heat in. We also now have a growing light over the work bench out in the garage. I'll set the light on a timer so they get the light they need without frying them.

We will be planting pumpkins, zucchini and some pickling cucumbers (these don't have a good history of growing in our area but I want to try) in the old garden bed in the back yard. We're also going to do a "gutter garden" hanging on the shed.

We changed our minds about growing grass around the new beds because we realized we'd just get irritated when the clover inevitably moves in next year so we brought in three yards of cedar play chips. We picked cedar because of its natural weed-fighting properties and because it smells good in a fresh hamster cage kind of way. Here's what it looked like mid-day this past Saturday:

We also got some free firewood that my husband chopped recently. That will all be moved into the end of the new shed where we keep our firewood. It will need to dry out this summer before we can use it though.

The last garden related news I have to report is that we got 6 blueberry bushes and 4 huckleberry bushes for some areas of our yard that we cleared last year. We went to a place called Flower World that is AMAZING!!! It is in Snohomish, WA and was just huge and well stocked already. Here's where we planted the bushes:

    

I didn't take post-planting photos and now it's pouring so I'm not going out there to take them. The first shot shows the ones we can keep an eye on from our front window. The others are on the back of the house. The hubs did weed the area before he planted them. He's a good gardener like that.

We're so excited to be growing so much great food around our house. The Snickerdoodle can't wait to help out (I hope he knows that helping isn't just about picking all the berries and eating them).


Thank you for reading,
Julie