Sunday, January 27, 2008

2008 Garden Layout

Below is a sketch of my garden layout for 2008. It's pretty difficult to read because of my blog's space limitations.
In the top portion of my main garden I have the main compost area where everything gets recycled including vegetable scraps from the kitchen, lawn clippings, misc. prunings. Next to the compost pile I have three herbs: thyme, oregano, and parsley. Completing the top portion is where I plan to sow my taters. I going to attempt to try something different and throw the seed potatoes into straw that I'll strew about. I heard that spuds do really good growing in straw.
In the bottom portion, reading from left to right, I'll have a planting of zucchini. Below that, in the first row, I have a nice section for my leeks that I always use in my homemade chicken barley soup. Next to the leeks I'll put in four plants of Brussels sprouts. The last section is reserved for kohlrabi. I've never grown it but I'm going to put in several new crops this year.
In the second row is Swiss chard, cukes, parsnips, and garlic. Third row: winter cabbage, beets, summer squash, and Carmen green peppers. Fourth Row: green beans, jalapeno peppers, celery, and snow peas. Fifth row: some more garlic, cherry tomatoes, Aconcagua green peppers, green onions, and French muskmelons. Six row: Acorn Squash, turnips, Roma tomatoes, summer and winter carrots. That completes the main garden, which is directly behind our little house.
In the second sketch is what I call my annex. For the past three years I've had very successful strawberry crops. This year I've decided to shrink the size of the strawberry bed and I put in a 3X12 ft. "salad" garden, consisting of two cherry tomato plants, leaf lettuce, green onions, romaine lettuce, spinach, and kale. Next to the salad garden is the old (much smaller) strawberry bed that is also 3X12. Next to the berry bed I'm making another bed for more herbs. These herbs are: dill, basil, sage, tarragon, summer savory, and coriander (cilantro). All three are raised beds. The other section of my garden is a mixture of flowers, fruit, and veggies. Along the back fence I have two grape vines. Running along the fence, perpendicular to the grapes are a bunch of red raspberry bushes. Also in this section I have spots for the rhubarb, marsh mallow, rose, cone flower, and a dwarf lime tree. I harvested four limes off the tree last year. I had the tree in a pot but last year the thing got so huge that I couldn't possibly drag it in and out all year. So I planted the thing in the ground and crossed my fingers, hoping that it will survive our Michigan winters.

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