I’m not sure it’s ever going to feel like summer. So much rain makes it feel like spring.
The last storm brought 5 inches in a couple of hours. We had a river flowing across the driveway. We are so glad that we laid more gravel in the spring for a smoother drive & no more moat.
The weather is warming up, we are finishing up our school year and spending more and more time working on our garden plan for 2015! Now if it would just stop raining for a week or so that would be amazing!
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I was in the right place at the right time. I stopped at the Amish salvage store and they had LOTS of beautiful strawberry plants for sale!
Before it got too soggy, Steve had the beds built and we got the Square Food Garden dirt mixed. All that was left was to find a way to keep the dogs out & the weeds to a minimum. It all came together very nicely!
Bear. He's my tag along helper. He follows me everywhere.
Cardboard and grass clippings to battle the weeds.
A LOT of grass clippings
Reinforced mesh. Hubby says it's cheap and it will keep the dogs out.
Done! Now to get the plants in the ground!
We spent a whole afternoon getting the dirt mixed and then putting up the fence. Joshua was a HUGE help to his dad! We used half a cattle panel as our gate. It is wired to one side and has a hook on the other side to keep it closed.
Unfortunately it blew over in the night since we didn't have it wired up yet. The dogs definitely need to be blocked out of our gardens. I was seriously unhappy with them the next morning but it could have been much worse!
Dark picture but this is from the dogs digging and nosing around.
Smoothed and ready to plant
We really don't want to mow around these beds so we are using hay to mulch the paths. The bales of hay on the garden are really coming in handy!
We are using the wheelbarrow to slowly move more hay to cover the paths. Needless to say this is itchy & hot work. We do a couple of loads a day when we need a break from other tasks.
This bale had been "peeled" enough that we were able to roll it from one side of the garden all the way to the other side of the house.
That's a long, long way.
That's the kids story anyway.
We did it and everyone survived.
Using the hay as mulch is a great way to use up kid energy, build memories & help them to grow stronger in body & character.
So half of our Square Foot Gardens are now filled. I am thrilled to have that part of the work done! Everyone else cannot wait to taste those strawberries in future years!!
Hay mulch 8-10 inches thick around the beds. Raspberry plants sticking up out of hay too!
2014 was the first year we planted a garden at our new place.
When we moved in in September of2013 there were cucumbers, tomato & pepper plants that the previous owner had planted. We really benefited from the produce because the garden spot was very productive!
You wouldn't expect to be unpacking boxes and canning tomatoes at the same time but that year some how we did both.
In 2014, we decided to try something new and make Square Foot Garden's after reading the book by Mel Bartholomew.
You might ask why we would do that if the garden spot was so productive. We had our reasons.
SF Garden #1 had broccoli, cabbage & cauliflower & lettuce in it. All did well except the cabbage. I didn't keep it watered enough. It was the first year we grew cabbage so I think this year it will be easier. *fingers crossed*
SF Garden #2 had acorn squash, spinach, green beans & peas in it. Acorn squash were small but again it was a watering issue.
SF Garden #3 & 4 were identical. Cherry tomatoes(which went crazy), carrots, beets, peppers & okra. These beds were even farther away from the house so again water was an issue. The carrots & tomatoes did fine. The rest were not as fortunate. The beets did nothing and the peppers never got any fruit.
In July we were gone on vacation for a whole week & had a friend watering. My tomatoes got blight and never really recovered. NEVER had to deal with that before. Then my mom got a lot worse & passed away. In August, I got a fungal infection in my eye(which led to a cornea transplant in December) and basically all gardening stopped. So I'm expecting a much better garden in 2015. But I wanted to list what we planted last year to show that you can get quite a variety of plants in a very small space.
We also planted pumpkins, watermelon, & cantaloupe in the "regular" garden space. My main reason for doing this was to keep the weeds from taking over. We planted our seeds and managed to much half of the garden with grass clippings. You guessed it that half of the garden did great and the other half was a weed patch. Even with just half of the garden doing well the pumpkin harvest was CRAZY!!!! I think we ended up with close to 20 pumpkins--not bad for a $1.29 seed packet. There were no cantaloupe and we only got two watermelon that weren't very big.
What are your 2015 garden plans?
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