Port Potager

Here we are … the plans for the final quadrant! This section is close to the house and to the right, near the gate to the driveway. The path on the left is the central brick path; the path on the right leads to the garage and workshop. To the far left, a long, skinny row along the brick path will be trellised cucumbers. The section below the gravel entry path will be for pickling; the section above for salads. Behind the pickling cucumbers will be tomatillos. We planted these together at the Red House and it worked well. Behind the salad cucumbers will be mustard plants. These are going out kind of late (in May), but they are mostly for mustard seeds and not for greens (although we'll pick some greens while they are still young and tender to add to salads). We grew mustard and harvested seeds before at the Red House, but did not have time to process them before we moved, so we ended up chalking that up as a loss. We are looking forward to trying again! Along the botto...

This quadrant is at the far end of the garden from the house, on the right side when looking out the back door. The brick path that runs along its right side goes from the house to the workshop. Like its mirror image to the left of the center brick path, this quadrant also has grapes and herbs running along the back bed that borders the lawn.  In the bed that runs up and down along the left side, we marked off five foot long areas. Instead of planting different vegetables in each area, we are using the areas for succession plantings of the same items at different times. In each five-foot section will be carrots, radishes, lettuce, beets, Swiss chard, bok choy, spinach, radicchio, and arugula. These will be planted in 6-inch wide rows (our favorites will be doubled up) that go across the bed the short way — another pretty intensive planting. These plants will be sown directly in the first section on April 14, then again every two weeks until the last sowing on May 26 (th...

It's here! We finished the garden plans last weekend, but I'm just now getting around to writing about it. It was a long and sometimes frustrating process to take crop rotation and seasonal sowing into account, but I think we finally have everything under control. These are big grids, made by taping four pieces of graph paper together. One square is 6 inches. Here is the patio quadrant: This section is, when looking out the kitchen door, to the left and nearest the house. As discussed before, the far left bed of this quadrant contains the strawberries (although as only 1/4 of that area will be planted out this spring, there is also plenty of space for an extra-early, experimental cold frame of salad greens that we'll plant this coming weekend if the weather is good. It has been far too mild a winter to pass up a chance at some early veggies!). Across the bottom are the other perennials, including (from the center outward) lavender, rhubarb, and roses . Along the ri...