2013 Master Plan: The Driveway Quadrant

Our last quadrant of the master plan is the driveway quadrant:

This sunny section is perfect for summer crops like corn, which will take up the center C. This year we will plant all the corn at once to try to ensure more thorough pollination so our sad "failure to pollinate" problem (read: not much corn) doesn't happen again.

Other sun-lovers in this bed include lots of tomatoes — they take up the whole right and bottom sides. Although we're planning on the same number of Romas for preserving, we decided to space our heirloom vining varieties out more, which will result in fewer plants but an easier harvest. We lost a bunch of tomatoes last year to broken trellising twine, so this is the right move. We also plan to go back to our old system of using giant wooden stakes instead of a frame with twine, which just wasn't sturdy enough for our giant tomato plants. 

On the left hand side is the completion of the nightshade for the season: eggplant, bell peppers, and two varieties of hot peppers. No complaints about the eggplant, but we're trying peppers from seed this year to see if we can get some jalapeños that are actually hot. Last year's were pitifully unspicy — I don't think you should be able to pop a jalapeño in your mouth and eat the whole thing raw without at least wincing. We're also going to try some cayenne to dry and use over the winter.

Finally, that leaves the top row. The topmost 6 inches are another pea trellis, and the rest of the space is divided evenly between onions and leeks, which consolidates our earliest plantings. The peas and onions will be gone before July is over, leaving space for a fall planting of ... something. That's farther than I can keep straight in my head!

Whew! That's a lot of planning, but I do love the platonic ideal. Oh, and the organizing. I love organizing as well. To wit: once the plans were all laid out, I entered all the planting dates into our family calendar  — synced to my phone, and complete with reminders! This keeps us on track so we don't forget to plant anything, and the reminder a day ahead of time means I can get any needed supplies before the weekend arrives: efficiency! I also got out the seed box to cull anything that was over four years old, and put back the viable seed packets grouped by plant families, rubber-banded together in nice piles. This bit of OCD helped me know what we had in stock already, so I could list only the things we needed on our seed buying list.

And then I was way too far gone down the path of decision fatigue to deal with seed catalogues, so I just looked at all the pretty pictures. Rome wasn't built in a day, and I bet Romulus and Remus didn't design and order their materials all at once either.