In spring 2010 we put in a new garden for growing food for the family. The garden is 50 x 100 ft running parallel to the pasture. There is 8 foot high deer fence around the entire garden. There are 3 locations for 6 foot wide openings. These are currently covered by deer fencing as well, but plans for putting in actual gates. In line with the gates are two 6 foot wide paths that divide the garden into quadrants. The paths are covered in a mixture of clover and grass for ease of mowing.
Soil
The ground was previously used as yard but thankfully no chemicals applied to it. The grass was mowed short then tilled under. Lime was added to the soil since this region tends to be more acidic.
South West Quadrant
Initially was all flowers from seed with a cluster of sunflowers in the most southwest corner. Along the western edge a row of basil was planted. Half was thai basil and half normal sweet basil (purchased as transplants). The basil went to seed in late summer when we stopped pruning it (not that we did much anyways).
North West Quadrant
Moving east to west (center to outer):
Row 1: Herbs including mint. All purchased as transplants. No special weed prevention used.
Row 2: Herbs including basil. All purchased as transplants. Hot peppers at the northern end. No special weed prevention used.
Row 3: 3-4 plants of yellow squash that were purchased as transplants. Tried newspaper & cardboard to prevent weeds.
Row 4: Two more squash plants, two zucchini. All purchased as transplants. Tried newspaper & cardboard to prevent weeds. Zucchini grew too large since we did not check on them often enough.
Row 5: Four zucchini. All purchased as transplants. Tried newspaper & cardboard to prevent weeds. Zucchini grew too large since we did not check on them often enough.
Rows 6 & 7: Six-ish eggplants. All purchased as transplants. Initially had bug problem. Tried using chili powder & soap. Dusting with __ chemical seemed to work.
Remaining portion allowed to overgrow with weeds and just periodically mowed down.
South East Quadrant
Moving from west to east (center to outer)
Row 1: 5 cherry tomato plants.
Row 2: 2 cherry tomato plants, 2 roma tomato plants. Some marigolds mixed in.
Row 3: 4 tomato plants - need to find variety types. Some marigolds mixed in.
All tomato plants did not have sufficient support structures due to being late season when finally assembled. All purchased as transplants. Cherry & roma varieties did extremely well, producing more than we could reasonably eat. We also did not collect as often as we should've. Larger varieties tended to end-rot due to inconsistent amounts of water they got. We mostly just let the rain provide the water.
Row 4: Mint and peppers.
Row 5: Sweet peppers and hot peppers.
Row 6: Two tee-pees of beans. Planted 8 spots from seed, 7 came up. One harvest since they were planted in the late summer.
Column closest to the center: 30 strawberry plants. Did some hay mulching and weeding throughout the summer. Expect to harvest in 2011.
North East Quadrant
Moving from west to east (center to outer)
Rows 1-11: Lettuce, argula, and spinach of multiple varieties. All planted from seed. Did not do any weed prevention other than manually weeding. Did not build large enough mounts to help prevent some weeds. Harvested for a couple months. Lesson learned: plant every couple weeks so the harvest lasts longer. Also do better weed prevention.
Later rows: some melons. Got a couple but were late in getting the vine up.
Edges
On the outside edges, we planted raspberry bushes, and black berry bushes. It is unclear how well they survived. A rose bush was also planted by the western gate. A single bloom was seen.
