Before there was the big vegetable garden, I gardened in raised beds. It started out as four rectangular raised beds laid out in a square. It eventually got a taller square bed in the center and a wood and chicken wire fence and then finally a few more smaller rectangular boxes squeezed in here and there for a total of 11 raised beds. A potager was born. The original four boxes were showing their age with some rotting of the wood and loosening of the screws that held the corners together. The summer before last I replaced one of the boxes and my plan was to replace one a year building a new box, moving soil from one of the other boxes to the new box and then replacing the empty box with a new one and repeating the process until all four of the boxes were replaced. Last fall we were given a trailer load of black dirt so we quickly put together the remaining boxes and filled them up with the black dirt ready for planting in the spring.
When spring arrived so did the thistles, dandelions and various grassy weeds. They were everywhere, in the boxes, in the crushed granite that covers the walkways between the beds and around the outside of the potager. While I have been busy with the greenhouse, the big garden, the mowing and the orchard the potager has gotten no attention. A potager is traditionally a kitchen garden and my plan has been to put in there things that might be tempting to a rabbit since there is a fence around it. Last year I tried planting edamame for the first time. I planted it in the big garden and it was gone immediately, nibbled off at ground level. I decided that I would try it again but this time in the potager.
I have lots of planting left to do in the big garden (the cornfield) but decided to focus on the potager while I wait to see if my deer repelling strategies are successful. More about that later. I had a some great help from Caitlin and Willow who were visiting and offered to help. We were able to clear the weeds from all of the boxes and some of the walkways. We then planted the center box as a meadow. I am shamelessly trying to copy Su's meadow that can be seen in her blogpost here. Scroll down to near the end of the post for a picture of the cutest meadow ever.
After Caitlin and Willow left I worked on planting the prepared beds. The edamame seeds went into one of the long beds. Next I planted the Kohlrabi seedlings in one of the perimeter beds. A second long bed was planted with eggplant seedlings. A third long bed was planted in short crosswise rows of salad greens--12 different kinds. A second perimeter bed has lengthwise rows of three different kinds of romaine lettuces and a row of spinach. The final long bed got two rows of onion seedlings and a row of beet seeds.
That left four small perimeter beds left to plant when the rain chased me out of the garden and into the house. It wasn't much rain but more is predicted for during the night and it will be great to have all the newly planted stuff get a little rain.
And now a little bit about the deer in the big garden. A couple weeks ago I had planted some kohlrabi, beets and onions. They were all seedlings, the kohlrabi was a bit bigger but the others were pretty tiny. I came back the next day and some of the kohlrabi had been eaten. I was unable to locate the beets and onions so I am not sure if they were eaten too or just were too small and didn't make the transplanting and uncooperative (cool nights, cloudy but dry and brutal winds) weather.
Last weekend Nathan and Michelle and Nikole and Brad were at the farm along with their dogs Reese and Greta and Honey and Indiana. We spent some time in the garden. I would like to have the garden be no-till but it might be a bigger project than I can handle without tilling. We will have to see how it evolves. So we tilled the one end of the north half and planted the vine crops. There were 110 plants in all including zucchini and yellow summer squashes, cantaloupe, and acorn, delicata and butternut winter squashes. The area that will hold the sweetcorn was also tilled and after the kids left that area was readied and planted with 15 rows of sweetcorn.
We are growing six kinds of tomatoes, a hybrid slicer, two heirloom slicers, one paste and two cherry tomatoes. The hybrid slicer, paste and one of the heirloom slicers went in first. A row of each. The next day I noticed that some of them had been broken off and the tops left laying and some were gone completely. I was really surprised that they would be eaten. I replanted and it was just about dusk when I finished and the very next morning some of them were gone. I have three big dogs and although the garden is on the edge of the property and kind of separated from the house I really didn't expect to have so many repeat visitors. I really cannot afford to fence the whole thing in and I don't want to unless I have to, so I checked the internet and came up with a list of things to try. The easiest was to hang foil pie pans from strings to make noises in the breeze. Mom and Dad were coming to the farm so i asked them to pick up some pans for me and by nightfall I had replanted the tomatoes, planted the other tomato varieties that had not been planted yet and as a test a couple of eggplant seedlings and Brussels sprout seedlings. I have nine fence posts down the center of my garden and they all got a foil pan wind chime. I also hung some on the trellising for a total of 12. That was yesterday. Today I walked to the garden and found that there were no new eaten tomatoes. The eggplant and Brussels sprouts were just like when I planted them. One night is not a guarantee of ongoing success. It has been an extremely windy spring but that doesn't mean it will always be windy enough to move the pans and make noise so I am going to try a few other deterrents as well. And keep my fingers crossed.
Thanks kids for all the help. I will try to get a few pictures to share.
Showing posts with label potager. Show all posts
Showing posts with label potager. Show all posts
Saturday, June 6, 2015
Monday, January 19, 2015
feeling optimistic...
A few days ago I took a few pictures of the potager in winter. There wasn't a lot of snow and the bones of the potager were peeking through. Last year this garden was a failed space but some end of the season work, barely finished before that early first snow means that once the ground dries out in the spring it will be ready to go.
This was my first vegetable garden. It started out as four rectangular raised planting boxes set in a square. The fence was added a bit later and then the taller center box was built. Several years ago I added six smaller boxes around the perimeter wherever I could squeeze them in. In 2012 the four original beds were starting to show some rotting of the wood and I set out on a plan to replace one each year. My thought process was that the soil in the boxes has a high percentage of compost and as the compost deteriorates the level of soil in the boxes is reduced and instead of topping off the beds with additional compost I would transfer the soil from one of the boxes to the other three boxes. Where the empty box stood I would plant my two vertical potato towers. While the potatoes were growing I would have the whole summer to build the replacement box, remove the old empty one and replace it with the new one. When I harvested the potatoes the soil from the towers would be the beginning soil for the new bed. I could then transfer soil from one of the other beds and start the whole process all over again.
It worked in 2012. The first bed was emptied, potatoes planted, new bed built and the dirt from the potato towers was the beginnings of the new bed. In 2013 bed number two was built and in 2014 bed three was emptied and the potatoes planted and then nothing. In the very wet spring that we had everything became a scramble to get done and the poor potager received no attention. The weeds grew up in the beds and around them. The potatoes, once planted never got their soil additions.
And then this happened.
Mom and Dad's neighbor next door had a building project starting and was asking Dad where he could get rid of the dirt removed for his project's new foundation. It was my idea to take the dirt, thinking that it could be used to fill my sister's planned but not yet built garden boxes. The garden boxes that will be placed at the edge of her planned but not yet built, stage two of her patio project. She cannot build her boxes until the patio is in so the trailer full of dirt came to the farm. It was determined that the dirt could not sit on the trailer all winter so it was decided to use it around the farm. Some of it went around the house to correct the grade in the front of the house. The remainder was used to top off the existing beds of the potager and the new beds where the hoop house will be and the two new replacement beds built by Dad to finish up the four year plan in year three.
Here is Mom loading the last of the dirt. She and I moved all of the dirt, she shoveled it into the white tubs and I would load the tubs into a wheelbarrow and haul them away, three at a time. After emptying the tubs I would return to the trailer and swap my empties for the ones that she had filled while I was gone. It was a huge project but when it was done the yard around the house was graded and ready for bark and 13 planter boxes were filled to the brim.
Thanks Mom, thanks Dad.
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| some of the perimeter boxes |
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| center box, four long boxes greenhouse in the background |
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| This will get plastic on it and be the hoophouse |
This was my first vegetable garden. It started out as four rectangular raised planting boxes set in a square. The fence was added a bit later and then the taller center box was built. Several years ago I added six smaller boxes around the perimeter wherever I could squeeze them in. In 2012 the four original beds were starting to show some rotting of the wood and I set out on a plan to replace one each year. My thought process was that the soil in the boxes has a high percentage of compost and as the compost deteriorates the level of soil in the boxes is reduced and instead of topping off the beds with additional compost I would transfer the soil from one of the boxes to the other three boxes. Where the empty box stood I would plant my two vertical potato towers. While the potatoes were growing I would have the whole summer to build the replacement box, remove the old empty one and replace it with the new one. When I harvested the potatoes the soil from the towers would be the beginning soil for the new bed. I could then transfer soil from one of the other beds and start the whole process all over again.
It worked in 2012. The first bed was emptied, potatoes planted, new bed built and the dirt from the potato towers was the beginnings of the new bed. In 2013 bed number two was built and in 2014 bed three was emptied and the potatoes planted and then nothing. In the very wet spring that we had everything became a scramble to get done and the poor potager received no attention. The weeds grew up in the beds and around them. The potatoes, once planted never got their soil additions.
And then this happened.
Mom and Dad's neighbor next door had a building project starting and was asking Dad where he could get rid of the dirt removed for his project's new foundation. It was my idea to take the dirt, thinking that it could be used to fill my sister's planned but not yet built garden boxes. The garden boxes that will be placed at the edge of her planned but not yet built, stage two of her patio project. She cannot build her boxes until the patio is in so the trailer full of dirt came to the farm. It was determined that the dirt could not sit on the trailer all winter so it was decided to use it around the farm. Some of it went around the house to correct the grade in the front of the house. The remainder was used to top off the existing beds of the potager and the new beds where the hoop house will be and the two new replacement beds built by Dad to finish up the four year plan in year three.
Here is Mom loading the last of the dirt. She and I moved all of the dirt, she shoveled it into the white tubs and I would load the tubs into a wheelbarrow and haul them away, three at a time. After emptying the tubs I would return to the trailer and swap my empties for the ones that she had filled while I was gone. It was a huge project but when it was done the yard around the house was graded and ready for bark and 13 planter boxes were filled to the brim.
Sunday, April 28, 2013
spring is in the air...
It felt like summer today. The high was recorded at 79 degrees and it is kind of looking like we might get a little rain tonight. It felt good to get outside and do a little preparation work in the portager. I worked up the new soil in the bed that was replaced last fall and the center bed. Both need a couple more inches of compost to fill them up to the top and recharge the soil.
So I headed over to check out the compost pile. The compost is not fully decomposed yet but it is close so I shoveled off a few wheelbarrows-full and started a new pile. If it doesn't rain tonight I will water it tomorrow. I think that turning the pile will encourage it to decompose faster and hopefully be ready to add to the garden boxes before it is time to plant those boxes.
Some of the perimeter boxes will need more soil or compost to top them off as well. A decision needs to be made as to whether to plant the three long boxes that need to be replaced or rebuild them and then plant them. Once there is stuff growing it is pretty much fall before any building can be done.
A quick peek in the box where I planted the garlic last fall shows that nothing is happening yet. If no rain tonight perhaps I will give that a shot of water tomorrow. There is no activity yet in the strawberry tower yet so that will get a shot of water tomorrow also.
Next I moved to the greenhouse and watered all of the plants on the tables and planted seeds for transplants. Quite a bit of the seeds planted last weekend are up and so I moved most of them off the heat mat to make room for today's plantings: two kinds of cucumbers, both a pickling and a slicing, along with two summer squashes, a yellow and a zucchini, two winter squashes, an acorn and a butternut, and the pumpkins.
These, along with the melons planted last week and the sweet corn will be going into the new planting area which still needs to be readied. It was still pretty wet a couple days ago but once it is dry we will till it and lay out the beds. I would like part of the garden to be done in raised rows. I am thinking that if I install a few every year that it would be manageable and allow for the layout to develop over the course of time.
To do list for tomorrow:
set up the bird bath
water the new pear tree
water the garlic
water the strawberry tower
water the new compost pile
work up the soil in one or two perimeter beds
check the field for moisture
move more composting manure
So I headed over to check out the compost pile. The compost is not fully decomposed yet but it is close so I shoveled off a few wheelbarrows-full and started a new pile. If it doesn't rain tonight I will water it tomorrow. I think that turning the pile will encourage it to decompose faster and hopefully be ready to add to the garden boxes before it is time to plant those boxes.
Some of the perimeter boxes will need more soil or compost to top them off as well. A decision needs to be made as to whether to plant the three long boxes that need to be replaced or rebuild them and then plant them. Once there is stuff growing it is pretty much fall before any building can be done.
A quick peek in the box where I planted the garlic last fall shows that nothing is happening yet. If no rain tonight perhaps I will give that a shot of water tomorrow. There is no activity yet in the strawberry tower yet so that will get a shot of water tomorrow also.
Next I moved to the greenhouse and watered all of the plants on the tables and planted seeds for transplants. Quite a bit of the seeds planted last weekend are up and so I moved most of them off the heat mat to make room for today's plantings: two kinds of cucumbers, both a pickling and a slicing, along with two summer squashes, a yellow and a zucchini, two winter squashes, an acorn and a butternut, and the pumpkins.
These, along with the melons planted last week and the sweet corn will be going into the new planting area which still needs to be readied. It was still pretty wet a couple days ago but once it is dry we will till it and lay out the beds. I would like part of the garden to be done in raised rows. I am thinking that if I install a few every year that it would be manageable and allow for the layout to develop over the course of time.
To do list for tomorrow:
set up the bird bath
water the new pear tree
water the garlic
water the strawberry tower
water the new compost pile
work up the soil in one or two perimeter beds
check the field for moisture
move more composting manure
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