Successive Gardening Beds
In hope of having a continuing harvest this year, I refrained myself form filling all my beds in the beginning of the season, and left them open for trying this successive gardening. The plants I am trying to have a continuing harvest with are squash, cucumbers, and annual herbs...like basil and dill.
I need to plan out my successive plantings of cilantro and parley as well, right now I just one patch of each, and actually have no parsley harvesting right now, only whats going to seed.
I'd really like to fit successive scallions in as well, I can grow them year round.
This bed was planted on April 21st and has tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, and a sunflower.
This bed was planted on May 3rd, and has tomatoes, squash, cilantro, calendula and nasturtium.
This bed was planted on May 31st, and has tomatoes, cucumbers, basil, sweet marjaram, calendula, chives and nasturtium.
This bed was planted on June 17, and has tomatoes, cucumbers, scallions, dill, cilantro, thyme, coconut geranium, and nasturtium.
I did the same with my lettuce beds. I have three, one is currently going to seed, one is just starting to pick, and the last is not even planted yet, but I have seedlings that will be ready in about 3 weeks to transplant.
posted by Jeanne @ 9:00 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
How much time do you spend doing your garden?weeding? watering?It looks beautiful but is it labour intensive.
Do you grow just to eat or make things?are there any purely decorative areas?
I work fulltime as an RN and i dream of growing lots of herbs and veg but the time juggling between work and gardens is a killer.
love your posts.You consistently inspire me,thanks for your cool educational posts!
Hey snappy - this garden is very low maintenance this year, so I spend less time then I ever had in the past, it seems. I have been hand watering, that takes 1/2 hour each evening. Its easy to break down tasks with the raised beds, so weeding one bed at a time, takes 5 minutes and seems like nothing. The successive gardening has broken down the work, so preparing and planting one bed at a time seems like nothing. We don't seem to be in a rush. I might make a list of what I want to get done, but have no deadlines. I do what I can, when I can. I never spend more then 1/2 a day working in the garden, and even that is rare.
Over the years I have removed any plants not happy, and stick with ONLY low maintenance varieties that pretty much take care of themselves. Even the chickens are very low maintenace, I recommend everyone add them to their garden.
I did decide to go completely edible in my landscaping, so just about every plant is useful for one thing or another.
My husband and I do all the work ourselves. We have been living here for 10 years, and it took that long to get it like this. He is a work maniac, and after sitting in an office all day, he comes home and seems to really enjoy the intensive labor. Thank god, because I get exhausted just watching him. He did all the building of the beds, pathways/drainage, composting, coop building, pergola building, pouring cement, fence, rock walls, etc. I do design, planting, maintenance, etc. I don't have to go out and work everyday, so this is what I do. Sometimes I think I must be crazy, because I can't just buy a bag a prewashed lettuce.....no I have to start with the seed......it is so much work, what am I talking about! But I guess this is what I would rather be doing.
I would suggest people add one raised bed at a time and see how much they can handle. That's basicly what I did. Good thing my yard is not any bigger!
Thanks for all your great advice. I'm across the bay from you in Alameda and I'm trying to establish a lot of edibles in my garden. I'm particularly interested in keeping lettuces and spinach growing all year. So far my spinach was a mixed success--off to a great start and then bolting early. Have you any tips for growing spinach year round in our climate?
claire
I avoid growing spinach. Something likes to lay it eggs on my spinach, and it is too labor intensive to wash off, if not impossible, so I gave up growing it (but love it prewashed from the farmers market).
I did year round gardening last winter using remy cloth over my beds for the first time, and it was successful. In our mild climate, lettuce and herbs can continue to grow every month of the year, under remy cloth. In the past, they would go dormant for a month or two, usually in January/February, but not with the remy cloth, they keep growing.
Now that I think of it, perhaps I can try spinach under remy. It may prevent the egg laying bug from getting to the spinach?? Maybe I'll test out a few rows this winter.
Hello! I need help. My tom plants have verticulum wilt. I am a novice gardener (1st time actually) and so I have no experience to fall back on. Apparently I can plant new toms in a totally different location, but what if they too become infected?? This disease lives int he soil and can be in the plant itself, but I believe the first is true bc all my plants are becoming ill, not just selected varieties. I need help.
TIA
Sonya
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