2014 Master Plan: The Driveway Quadrant

Another snow day here. Well, to be more precise, we had just a couple of inches here, but further south they had a blizzard, which was enough to get me a snow day. A snow day all to myself while Newburyport kids went to school: ahhh.

As always, a snowy day is a lovely time to dream about spring and the coming year's garden. Here is the plan for the final quadrant for 2014:

To the left, you can see the mirror image of our pole bean arbor that will span the center path. On this side we have the remaining bed filled with butternut squash instead of pumpkins, though. In the top part of the lefthand row is the corn block. In previous years we have devoted an entire "C" to sweet corn, but have not had a level of success worth dedicating that much space to it. This year we are trying a different variety, but on a smaller scale. If we don't get some nice ears of corn this year, we may give up on growing grain in the garden at all.

Along the top row is another pea trellis, with room behind it for two zucchini plants, a patch of Swiss chard, a patch of head lettuce (somewhat new for us, as we usually just end up picking off leaves whenever we feel like it instead of letting a head reach maturity — we still have room for mesclun in our early greens section, though, in case we can't break the habit), and a small square for Tiegan to grow popcorn (most of which was eaten by squirrels the last time she tried it).

Down the righthand row are sweet potatoes and red cabbages. The brassica crops continue along the bottom, where we have broccoli and two succession plantings of Brussels sprouts. These rows near the house will be shaded in the afternoon, which should be good for these cool-weather plants.

Finally, the center "C" has a trellised row of cucumbers as well as ground vines of watermelon and cantaloupe. On the ends are eggplant, bell peppers, a few jalapeño plants, and a bit of chamomile and nasturtium as well. All of those things should do well in this warm, sunny spot.

And there you have it — the master plan for 2014. We'll be starting seeds just as soon as I get them, and I'll share the inventory of varieties we chose for this year when the package finally arrives. It's hard to imagine when the wind chill right now is only 6 degrees, but it's just about time to get growing!