Community Garden Layout 2009

So, here's the layout for this year's community garden plot. The area is 20ft by 40ft. We have planted some as of May 1st, but not much. Our last average frost is the 15th of May, so we'll get everything in the ground around the 15th.

Above is a shot across the row of peas. They are just starting out. Since they are so cold hardy, we plant them as soon as we get the ground turned over.

Here is the horseradish as it comes up. Apparently its roots spread like crazy wildfire. Oh well, a bit late now.

The young leaves are tender and have a slight taste of horseradish, but actually would make a wonderful addition to a spring salad.

This shows the perennial end of the garden. This is the lavender, thyme, lavender, tarragon, lavender row. The rest of the garden plot is to the bottom right corner of this picture (with north running across the row of perennials).

The empty area to the left of the lavender is our 'annex'. We claimed some more public area (an additional 20 X 15 feet). We have more everbearing strawberries there now as a border. After the 15th, we will plant some cooking pumpkins, and maybe some miniature, decorative pumpkins for fall.

intro

Ok, this is my first shot at this. We'll see how it goes. I am doing this because Amanda asked me to, and I think it might not be a bad idea. While it is possible that something I have done or am planning to do might help someone else, I imagine that I will get much more out of this than any readers would.

So, I am an avid gardener, on the verge of dropping out of my PhD in Engineering to start a full scale farm somewhere with a nice little Inn or Tavern to get the food out to people. I doubt it would ever really happen, but here in cyberspace I can dream anything I wish. So, this blog will be sort of a discussion or history of what I grow, what I want to grow, what I cook and some of the ideas I would like to try along these lines.

The picture above was taken from a tree next to our community garden. My plot is the one in the upper left, hightlighted in red. I am the rightmost figure in the Center in this picture. This picture was taken in April 08, when we were starting our second year as a community garden. Our plot is about 20 feet by 40 feet, roughly 800 square feet (out of an 11000-15000 sq ft communal plot).

The next picture is a shot of our little backyard house garden. We've had it for about 6 years now, and we have spent alot of time and effort getting the soil conditioned. Everything we do is organic, but the methods have changed within that boundary over the years. We started out with organic fertilizers, like bloodmeal, bonemeal and potash, with lime if necessary. But, recently we have moved to simply emptying our entire compost heap into the garden each spring. Our secondary 'fertilizer' is just to give the plants more than ample space. We very rarely water (2-4 times per year). This garden is about 15 by 20 feet.

Finally, we have a set of herb gardens on either side of the side porch to our house. These get nice, full afternoon sun. The foundation of the house (concrete) absorbs alot of heat during the afternoon and keeps the beds really hot. Also, either the warmth from the heater or solar collection during the day somehow keep these beds warm enough during the winter that some tender perennials seem to last through the freeze.

I'll get cracking soon on what we did on our last Cook Day, what we made, what I wish we had changed, etc.