So my boss told me when I was planning this year's garden...that the years that you completely overextend yourself as a gardener will be the years that are the most rewarding. She couldn't possibly have been more right. I always joke about my garden and say "Go BIG or go home!" but this year I really tried to live by that, as can be seen in the garden plan for 2015 which includes the addition of seven, 4' x 8' wooden raised beds.
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| 2015 Garden Plan |
I ordered seeds in January, just a few anyways....
Seeds were started from February through May, depending on the vegetable, and were grown inside with the two 4' long grow lights I had purchased.
This year I was hell-bent on planting on time and planting cool weather crops earlier as the past two years I was lucky to get things in the ground the first few weeks of June. Since I had the two of the four raised cinder block beds free (one has perennials and one has garlic that was planted in the fall) that required little prep and would be dry the soonest, I planned to plant my onions, carrots, beets, leeks, shallots and so on in those beds that would be ready to go. This all went according to plan and those beds were completely planted by May.
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| Onion seedlings |
I purchased a cordless skill saw and drill set in spring of 2015 for the building of seven raised wooden beds that were added to this year's garden plan.
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| Mandatory tools/supplies...especially the XL Timmy. |
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| Completed, 4' x 8' bed, 10" deep |
We also ordered another load of potting soil from Envirem Organics. This soil works very well and is a mix of local peat, sand and compost.
Three of the wooden raised beds would be 20" high and the rest would be 10". Most of these were built and placed before June of 2015.
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| Seedlings; all patiently hardening off, awaiting their turn to be planted. |
4 of the raised beds were perennial beds, and should not need to be replanted. These included 2 asparagus beds, a raspberry bed, and a rhubarb bed. The other 3 wooden beds will be used for annuals.
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| Rhubarb (far) and asparagus beds |
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| Boyne and Heritage raspberries |
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| Asparagus |
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| Rhubarb |
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| Getting there.... |
I had a full week's vacation from work, planned for the first week of June, June 1-7th and I worked furiously that entire week finishing the raised beds and filling them. Erin worked on the in-ground garden paths, putting down landscaping cloth and adding wood shavings on top to keep weeds at bay, as well as adding to the garden aesthetic. The in-ground beds were tilled and built up and raised a few extra inches by adding potting soil. The hope is that next year I can practice no-till gardening on these and just loosen the soil in these beds with a broad fork and then plant, greatly reducing the amount of work required, and without disturbing the soil structure and microbiology.
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| Planted before we bought the property, this bearded iris was a pleasant surprise our first spring here. |
Spring also revealed this strange thing, where I had lazily left the bunching onions the previous fall. Happy accident though, as I remembered that onions were biennial, meaning they go to seed every other year. I harvested a good pint of bunching onion seeds over the summer. I plan to do this with my leeks, shallots, yellow and red onions as well so I can save money on seed. If you're new to seed saving I suggest trying the onion family first. Very easy to do.
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| Everything built and planted. |
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| All paths finally mulched. |
By the time we were finished planting everything, the garlic I had planted last fall had come up and was well on its way. We tried spring garlic the previous year, but had no real luck with that.
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| Our first harvest of garlic scapes. |
Total harvest included about 5 lbs of garlic scapes, which we used in omelettes and stir-frys.
We harvested around 100 cloves of garlic, most of them a decent size. It's currently January, 2016 and we have a little over half of them left. There should be enough to last until next harvest and they are still fresher than the garlic at the grocery store.
Tomatoes have been a challenge the last three years, due to rainy summers and late blight. We still managed an okay harvest last summer. I tried to plant a few blight resistant strains and used red plastic mulch as well to cut down on fungal exposure.
I got lazy and didn't put cages on the cherry tomatoes, hence the resulting jungle. They still grew very well, though I'm sure I would have gotten better production if I had used the cages. All in all, a good harvest for tomatoes, we even had enough for a batch of salsa or two.
This was my second year growing potatoes. I've seen a few videos on YouTube that suggest that potatoes, like peppers and tomatoes, will root all along the stem if it is buried deeply. So, if you keep burying the plant, theoretically you would get more roots and therefore, more potatoes. I filled by 20" deep beds only halfway and planted to test this theory. Unfortunately, it was a complete bust. I found that no additional roots grew along the stem above the original level. Next year I'll fill in the whole bed before planting so the potatoes can grow deeper. I think we’ll definitely see better results that way. We still got a few potatoes, and it was fun to try different kinds, especially the fingerlings. No trouble at all with pests this year, possibly due to moving the location of the potato bed.
Sweet potatoes were another first I grew this year. I ordered slips from a place called Mapple Farm in northern New Brunswick. They were in very nice condition when they arrived, however I planted them before reading the instructions that came with them and missed that they needed to be hardened off before planting. I tried to shade them with a sheet for the first couple of days to keep them from getting sunburned, but the weather still took a toll on them. A couple plants died, the rest were set back a few weeks I think. Despite all this we did get a few small sweet potatoes. Next year we should have much better luck. The few we did harvest were very tasty.
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| Sweet Potato Slips from Mapple Farms. |
I ordered a few perennial vegetables and fruit from Mori Essex Nurseries including asparagus, raspberries, strawberries and rhubarb. We wouldn’t see any sort of harvest from these in 2015 as they need to be well established first.
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Order from Mori Essex Nurseries. 100 asparagus crowns, 30 Kent strawberry plants,
3 each Boyne and Heritage raspberry canes and 5 Canada Red rhubarb crowns. |
Canada Red rhubarb crowns were planted first.
They took right away and some nice leaves formed. I was mostly good and let it establish, but did pull off one, tender, skinny stalk and ate it. Delicious. They died out early in the fall though. I’m hoping they come back okay in the spring.
The Kent strawberries were planted in the bed with the Alpine strawberries, haskap and blueberry bushes. I snipped off all blossoms, but did let a few runners grow so I could fill in the bed. I think we should get a nice harvest next summer.
The Alpine strawberries were great again. We can pull a cup or two of berries off of these plants daily. It’s not a huge amount as the berries are very tiny, but great for a bowl of cereal or just a quick snack when working in the garden. I harvest the excess almost daily and freeze for jam.
The blueberry and haskap bushes that were planted last year came back bigger and bushier and we harvested quite a bit of fruit off of them both. I plan on planting a full 4’ x 8’ bed of each.
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I really enjoy haskap berries. They look like a misshapen, ugly blueberry and taste like a cross between a blueberry and raspberry. Very tasty. I can’t wait to grow enough of these to make a pie. It will be utterly amazing.
I’ve been waiting patiently to grow asparagus for a few years now. Finally this was the year and I ordered 100 Mary Washington crowns. We love asparagus and I’ve been told that there is nothing in the world like asparagus fresh picked from the garden. I can’t WAIT to try it this spring.
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| Asparagus spears just starting to grow. |
Raspberries are something else I’ve been wanting to grow for a long time. I purchased 9 canes this year, but hope to add more as time goes on. I planted two varieties, Boyne and Heritage. I’d also like to add black raspberries and a yellow variety down the road. I love raspberries, so I’d like to see a very large patch.
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New growth on recently planted canes.
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Raspberry canes established nicely.
Hopefully we'll see some fat berries on the new canes come spring. |
The addition of the perennial beds made me very happy, as those will feed us for years to come, with little additional effort other than occasionally adding nutrients to the beds in the fall. I hope to plant more perennial fruit and veg in 2016. Big things to come!
A few random shots of some of the other things we grew in summer 2015:
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| Yellow wax beans |
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| Butternut squash |
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| Acorn squash. |
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| Borage, one of the best attractants for bees. |
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| Broccoli. |
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| Sugar pumpkin. |
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| Flowering mint. |
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| Parsley |
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| Rosemary |
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| Oregano (perennial) |
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| Black Seeded Simpson lettuce |
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| Snow Peas |
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| Hostas that was already here when we purchased the house. |
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| These beautiful peonies were here as well. |
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| Radishes |
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| Scallions |
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| Fava Beans |
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| Peas and Kale |
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| Pole Beans |
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| Carrot Patch |
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| Flowering Peas |
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| Unripe Serviceberries |
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| Fennel |
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| Romaines |
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| Green Oakleaf Lettuce |
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| Parsnips |
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| Leeks |
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| Carrot Patch |
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| Spinach |
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| Sweet Corn |
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| Basil |
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| Celery |
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| Fava Bean Flowering |
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| Pole Bean |
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| Pole Beans |
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| Tomatillos |
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| Ground Cherries |
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| Swiss Chard |
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| Brussels Sprouts |
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| Onions |
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| Volunteer Borage |
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| Red Cabbage |
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| Fava Beans |
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| Purple Marconi Pepper |
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| Early Jalepeno Pepper |
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| Green Cabbages |
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| Bell Peppers |
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| Rutabega |
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| Red Russian Kale |
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| Onions |
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| Cucumber Patch |
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| Pickling Cucumber |
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| Blanching Celery |
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| Flowering Mint |
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| Cauliflower |
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| Butta Zucchini |
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| Bell Peppers |
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| Sunrise Bell Pepper |
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| Bell Peppers |
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| Red Cabbages |
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| Thai Chili Peppers |
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| Ground Cherries |
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| Corn |
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| Kentucky Pole Beans |
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| Zinnias, Calendula, Asters |
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| Fava Bean Harvest |
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| Lemon Cucumber |
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| Oregano Flower |
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| Ground Cherry Harvest |
One of my last projects in the fall. I dug up this area out front to make a flower bed for the hostas and bearded iris that needed to be divided. I noticed last year that only one bearded iris ever comes up, but that there were a number of plants in there. I pulled out 30 rhizomes and also divided the hosta into three separate plants. I gave one to a friend and planted one in the bed above and one back in the bed it came from along with several of the iris. I planted the rest of the iris in the bed below. We'll see how that turns out in the spring I guess.
2015 was the first year I really let myself go a little crazy with flowers. I planted a number of varieties of calendula, marigolds, and nasturtiums, but also planted asters, zinnias, and petunias from seed.
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| Day Lily. We have a large patch of them by our culvert that was well established when we bought the place. |
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| Aster |
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| Aster |
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| Violas |
