2010 Madness Begins

I did the preliminary lay-out for the garden and bought 15 dollars worth of seeds. Bought the seeds first though bad move. But standing in front of the rows and rows of seeds in their brightly colored packages it felt like spring. I wish Feed and Seed had their bulk seeds in. I still need a few pounds of snow peas and green beans. I have about one more meal of the sweet peas from last summer and I'm afraid to eat them . Because I'm Going to miss them terribly.

I'll have 13 raised bed's 4' x 25' that's 1300 square feet of Growing area. The area I'm tilling will be a little more than twice that. Every year I want to mow and till between the rows to control weeds. but the plants get to "bushy" and I have to use the push mower in between the rows. that is an unacceptable waste of time. I'm labeling the beds 1 - 13 with 1 being the South most bed and 13 being the North most. All beds run East West. Beds 1 ,2 , 3 all get shade in the after noon. Beds 1 and 2 will be heat resistant sweet peas. bed 3 will be cole crops broccoli and cabbages. Beds 4 and 5 mostly tomatoes and Peppers. Six and seven will be beans. Eight will be salad crops , lettuce, spinach , what ever is cheap. Bed 9 will be turnips , beets , radishes , etc. . bed 10 cucumbers and corn. Bed 11 squash and corn. Bed 12 more squash and corn. Bed 13 pumpkins and corn.

I'm modifying the bed garden design laid out in Peter Chan's Better Vegetable Gardens the Chinese Way. So I'll be disturbing the ground much more every year. My beds move a little every year to allow the tiller to really eat and grind in more organic matter into the soil. By not having an official compost pile and just dumping grass clippings, leaves what ever into the low parts of the garden and grinding it in with the tiller robs the soil of nitrogen. But the benefits of loosening the soil out weigh the lost nitrogen at this point .