Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Garden Beginnings

Here is the progression of the new garden:

Started on July 4th:
We have 5 lanes that are 40' x 16" with 1' wide lanes in between. This time around we are following Dick Raymond's (of Joy of Gardening fame) wide row method since it is much back friendlier and more efficient in terms of time (weeding, watering, etc). The lanes run east to west with some shade on either end. We did this on purpose because we have excruciatingly hot summers here and I am tired of everything bolting in mid-June and having sun scalded tomatoes.

Verdict so far? The wide rows and the shading worked great. We need to make the paths a bit bigger and we need to add at least two more rows but that is the beauty of this system. Since there are no 4' x 8' wood borders, I can till everything under at the end of the season and start all over with very little fuss. The narrower rows have made it a bit more challenging to place the row covers over the lanes but we arranged them parallel which has worked so far.

 July 4th, 2013



Fast forward to early Aug:

And today: