Garden Bling

SouleMama has a segment on her blog this time of year showing their garden week by week.  I try to capture ours at a few points during the season to show its growth, but I thought this year, I might try to take you on a tour every couple of weeks.  Our garden has a dedicated 1/3 acre section that we have filled with 19 raised beds.  We have room yet for growth, and this year added the hugelkultur.

At the top of the garden closest to the house are two beds, the one on the right we rotate and this year has some early season fennel, beets, and carrots.  To the left is a permanent bed that has our lavender, I harvested the first batch today for drying.

Then we have room for either two more beds or a patio before reaching the bulk of the garden.  The first row has two beds, one that we cover as a mini hoop house in the early spring, has cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower in it.  Behind it in the row is the new hugelkultur which we will plant next year.

The next row over begins with our potato bed.  We have found a great way to plant potatoes is just to lay them on the top of the bed, cover lightly with straw, and then as they grow continue to bury them. When it comes time for harvest, they are all nestled in the loose straw and come out fairly clean.  The next bed in the row has green onions, horseradish, and our giant rhubarb plant.  The third row down is planted to kale, kohlrabi and lettuces.

In the next row over we have the garlic that we planted last fall that we are enjoying scapes from right now.  Then the row behind it is full of peppers and eggplant.  The third row, which we have lined the center of to prevent weed growth has sugar snap peas growing on little trellis'.

As we move to the next row, you can see where we ran out of landscape fabric last weekend when we were rocking in all of the paths.  This first bed has summer squash to the left and cucumbers to the right, the cucumbers will soon be large enough to trellis.  The next two beds in this row have been rotated off this year.  We may put a fall succession planting in one of them to be determined.

In our next section, the first bed is rotated off this season, while the second bed is planted to yard long green beans (our first attempt at this, but should be a hit when we distribute them in farm bags).  The third bed has green beans along the back, and winter squashe in the front so they can vine out towards an open area of the garden space before the compost pile.

The final row has two beds in it and both are planted to tomatoes.  We have a couple of slicers and cherry tomatoes, but we plant most of the crop to paste tomatoes for canning.

Along the back boarder of the garden is a full row of red currants, just beginning to get a little blush on them.  We have a whole area by the barn that has raspberries, blackberries, boysenberries, gooseberries and elderberries.

Finally we have the compost pile.  It never ceases to amaze how quickly the compost breaks down and is ready to use.  We have had such a cool summer thus far that we are running right about two weeks behind last year's progress.  I am interested to see how this garden season unfolds.