Planning Next Years Garden

[freedhardwoods]

This is subject to change, but here's what I'm planning right now. I have more than enough seed for this plan already bought.
I will also need to fit in my wife's Gladiolas, Carnations, and Teddy Bear Sunflowers.

BLUE LAKE BEANS - 320' (1 wide row 80' long)

DELICIOUS CANTALOPE - 2 hills

SCARLET NANTES CARROTS - 40'

RAINBOW INDIAN CORN - 600'

STOWELL'S EVERGREEN SWEET CORN - 800' (4 rows 200' long)

SILVER QUEEN SWEET CORN - 11 rows 85' long

HOMEMADE PICKLES CUCUMBER - 3 hills

NATIONAL PICKLING CUCUMBER - 3 hills

ICE QUEEN LETTUCE - 80'

CANDY ONION - 40'

LITTLE MARVEL PEAS - 80' (1 wide row 20' long)

WANDO PEAS - 80' (1 wide row 20' long)

JUPITER BELL PEPPER - 20 plants

HABENERO CHOCOLATE PEPPER - 10 plants

HABENERO ORANGE PEPPER - 10 plants

JACK BE LITTLE PUMPKINS - 10 hills

BOX CAR WILLIE TOMATO - 15 plants

DELICIOUS TOMATO - 15 plants

BLACK BEAUTY ZUCCHINI - 8 hills

[PaulF]

With so many very good tomatoes, why, may I ask do you limit yourself to just two varieties? The ones you have chosen are excellent, but maybe expand your horizons and grow five of each and pick four more varieties as well.

My garden has space for thirty tomato plants and I plant 30 varieties.

[freedhardwoods]

For me, two varieties is expanding. I usually just grow one kind.

I'm not much on trying things just for the trying. When I find something I like, I stay with it. My garden in the past was just corn, beans, and a few tomatoes so I am really expanding with so many kinds of veggies.

Also, almost all of this is non-hybrid. I don't know if there are 30 varieties.

[imafan26]

I am still working on this years garden.
I am going to plant arugula, Bok Choy, tatsoi, broccoli, brussels sprouts, toscano kale, curly kale, red burgundy onions and Texas grano, leeks, garlic, carrots, napa cabbage, asparagus, snow peas, daikon, strawberries, cucumber, Swiss chard, NZ hot weather spinach, and I am going to try winter corn again. I used the wrong variety last time and it was a disappointment but I am hoping I got the right one this time if my broccoli finishes in time. Cherry tomatoes, beets and spinach. Araimo will be harvested in December and replanted.

Next summer: Silver Queen corn. If I start March 1, I can get three rotations in. Poamoho beans, Upo gourd, zucchini, kabocha squash, butternut squash, jicama, peanuts, sesame, lettuce (year round but the variety changes). Ginger will be harvested in January and replanted around March about the same time as the turmeric.

I have growing year round eggplant, hot peppers, papaya, chayote, and herbs. The calamondin and Kaffir lime provide fruit and leaves all year. The other citrus are more seasonal.

I don't have the space some of you have so I cannot grow the quantities you are putting in, but I will grow enough in my space when it is planted intensively for myself and to share with family and friends. My home plot is 8ft x16ft plus all the potted plants. My community garden is 20x40 ft but it has 4 citrus trees and a Bartlett pear planted in it, there are a lot of diseases which limit what I can grow, and since I only go there a couple of times a week, the plants there have to live on rain and not be anything that needs daily tending.

I grow just 47 corn plants max., three tomatoes, (excluding the wild ones), 3 Swiss chard, and 10-15 each of the Asian vegetables and lettuce (I can't eat them fast enough if I have more, but I will plant in succession) 10 beets at a time, 1 of each kale, 3-4 broccoli plants and 2 brussels sprouts. It is all I have room for. 2 zucchini, 4 cucumber, 10 each beans and peas, 1-2 of the vining squash (I have an overhead trellis to save space), spinach a whole packet. NZ spinach is -perennial in the tropics, I will not be able to eat it fast enough and it will take over so I am confining it to a pot. I'll put in some cover crops in spots mostly cowpea and buckwheat and I keep some plants to attract beneficial insects around all of the time in pots and areas around the yard.

[freedhardwoods]

Imafan,

I understand the small numbers in a limited space, but how did you arrive at the odd number 47 for your corn?

[freedhardwoods]

I forgot I want to try growing potatoes again. In the past, I would cut 10 lbs of big potatoes into seed and a few months later, I would dig up 10 lbs the size of golf balls. I should have just ate the big ones to start with.

[imafan26]

Free hardwoods. It just happens that when I plant a packet of seeds (usually there are around 60) under ideal conditions I end up with 47 plants and I get 67 ears. It just works out that way.

[jal_ut]

I'd say: Ambitious plans. Hope it goes well for you.

[rainbowgardener]

I agree, very ambitious? How big is your garden space?

But it seems a little light on cool weather stuff... broccoli, cabbage, spinach, leaf lettuces, kale, swiss chard, garlic?

Swiss chard and garlic are two of my favorite things to grow, because so easy and so productive.

And what about herbs? It is really good for your garden to tuck some basil, oregano, thyme, dill, lemon balm, anise hyssop and other aromatics around here and there. If you let some flower, they are good at attracting beneficial insects, but in the meantime the aromatics help hide your crop plants from the pest insects. And you can keep cutting herbs to use all season and then dry the rest.

[evtubbergh]

I forgot I want to try growing potatoes again. In the past, I would cut 10 lbs of big potatoes into seed and a few months later, I would dig up 10 lbs the size of golf balls. I should have just ate the big ones to start with.

Wahahaha

[freedhardwoods]

I agree, very ambitious? How big is your garden space?

But it seems a little light on cool weather stuff... broccoli, cabbage, spinach, leaf lettuces, kale, swiss chard, garlic?

Swiss chard and garlic are two of my favorite things to grow, because so easy and so productive.

And what about herbs? It is really good for your garden to tuck some basil, oregano, thyme, dill, lemon balm, anise hyssop and other aromatics around here and there. If you let some flower, they are good at attracting beneficial insects, but in the meantime the aromatics help hide your crop plants from the pest insects. And you can keep cutting herbs to use all season and then dry the rest.

I have 4 plots ready to go and am intending to have 1 more.

38'x85'
30'x30'
12'x240'
50'x60'

I grow a mostly "meat & potatoes" garden. In the 33 years we've been married, most of the things you mentioned have never been in our house. The ones that have are the rare occasion. I don't see much point in growing something we won't use or wouldn't sell.

The peppers will be one of the first things to cut back on in my final plan to make things fit. We eat few bells, and the hot ones are for my homemade bug spray. I gave away several bells this year and was thinking about selling some produce next year.

[freedhardwoods]

I'd say: Ambitious plans. Hope it goes well for you.

I guess what a person plans is relative to what they are used to. Until fairly recently, a 90 to 100 hr week Mon - Fri was not that uncommon for me. Then I would do my garden and other chores on the weekend.

I will admit I have slowed down some lately. I guess I'm getting lazy in my old age.

[rainbowgardener]

So you made me start thinking:

I looked and looked to try to find where I posted a plan like this last year, for comparison and never could find it.

This is a first approximation and subject to change. I don't know varieties yet and a lot I already have seed for so it will be whatever the seed on hand is

Sunny Lawn Plot

spring: garlic, onion, spinach, broccoli

summer: tomatoes, peppers, basil, parsley, marigolds, nasturtium

fall: repeat spring crops


Plot by Stairs (not quite full sun)

spring: spinach, celery, peas, lemon balm

summer: beans, marigold, savory

fall: spinach, lettuce


Shady backyard plot 1:

spring: garlic, carrots, onions, broccoli, parsley

summer: carrots, onions, chives,

fall: spinach to overwinter


Shady backyard plot 2:

spring: garlic, chard, lettuce, scallions/chives, cilantro, celery

summer: parsley, dill, basil

fall: garlic, lettuce


Sunny community garden plot:

spring: garlic, cabbage, kale, onions

summer: tomatoes, peppers, basil, parsley, dill, roselle, marigolds

fall: repeat spring


Potatoes in containers and a plot where the raspberries are now.

Perennial herbs in herb garden and pots

Squash in flower beds

I only have two sunny spots, so I can't really rotate and what is in the sunny spots is about the same as previous years. Main difference in this plan is I gave up on trying to grow tomatoes and peppers and squash in the shade. Added kale which I have never grown before. Also, I cut down the number of things to grow so that I can increase the quantities. Carrots and beans will each get a whole bed mostly to themselves, except for a bit of companion planting.

Everywhere it says spring garlic, that is already planted. I didn't succeed in doing much fall planting this year, so I just put in garlic everywhere!

[jal_ut]

Hmmmmm............ next year? Already I have planted 6 rows of garlic. All my rows are 40 feet. I have enough space for 80 rows that length I think.

I plan to plant corn, Ambrosia, 3 rows at a time and when each successive planting is 3 inches tall plant another 3 rows. This should give a pretty constant yield once it starts. I tried once planting 3 rows per week, but that didn't work out well, as some of the later planted corn caught up with the batch just ahead of it because of warmer weather and it all came together instead of spread out.

About 40 of my 80 rows reserved for corn.

4 rows potatoes, 2 rows carrots, 2 rows peas, 4 rows beans, 2 rows cukes, 3 rows onions, 1 row beets. Well........ that is about what I am thinking at this point. That will leave me some space for some squash and pumpkins. Work some spinach, broccoli and lettuce in there somewhere.

[littlelizzy123]

Next year, I will be home all summer, and not getting married and dipping out to Iceland or some other strange place like last year, so that will make things easier. I also won't need to have my mother in law tell me she will water my plants, only to forget and let 4 garden boxes and an entire freshly sown lawn die...

Garden Box 1 4x4ft - cool weather garden with cold frame for fall and early spring - part shade
- Space spinach (spring and fall staggered sowings)
- Large Leaf mache (staggered fall sowings)
- Bright Lights chard (spring and fall sowings)
- will probably stick some lettuce in there somewhere if it is empty for too long

Garden Box 2 4x4 ft - mostly sun
- Butterbush winter squash (bush type)
- Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans (trellised)

Garden Box 3 10x3ft - Shaded by a maple tree
- Jericho, New Red Fire, and Kragraner Sommer lettuce in hot months, Winter mix in spring and fall (3 sowings, staggered)
- Purple Globe Top Turnips (two sowings)
- Lincoln leeks (two sowings)
- Softneck garlic
- Mary Washington asparagus (already established)

Garden Box 4 4x4 - mostly sun
- White Satin, Shin Kuroda, Yellowstone, Purple Haze carrots, Nelson for overwintering (3 staggered sowings of each and then one sowing of Nelson)
- New Queen and Faerie icebox watermelon (trellised)

Garden box 5 4x4 - mostly sun
- Fiesta broccoli
- Jubilee and Honeydrop tomatoes

Garden Box 6 4x4 - 3 sisters garden - full sun
- Rattlesnake and Blue Coco pole beans for drying
- Luscious sweet corn (staggered sowings)
- Butternut and Sweet Meat squash


Garden Box 7 4x4 - full sun
- Provider and Golden Butterwax bush beans (2 sowings)
- Golden Wonder bell pepper
- Czech Black hot pepper
- Indigo Rose and Honeydrop tomatoes

Garden Box 8 - 10x3 - full sun
- Early Frosty and Tall Telephone peas in spring
- Copra and Red Marble Cippolini onions
- Ventura Celery in spring
- Provider and Golden Butterwax bush beans for summer sowing after celery
- New Queen and Faerie watermelon and General Lee cucumbers for early summer sowing when peas are done (trellised)

Garden Box 8 3x2 - full sun
- Genovese basil
- chives
- sage
- thyme

Potato bins x3 - full sun
- Dark Red Norland

I really want to try to maximize the space I have and rotate my crops a little more. In years past, I had a lot of space just sitting empty because I didn't know what to do with it. I never knew much about the cool season crops, so I really want to try those this year. I am trying more trellising as well; I had really good luck with my watermelons and squash up a trellis last year. Plus I always get so much darn seed in one package that I never have space to plant them all. Hopefully be succession planting, I can actually use them instead.