Garden 2011

I’ve been wanting to do a Garden 2011 post for a while now, but have been busy with said garden and my growing-like-weeds children. So here I sit before they get up this wet Wednesday morning to type a post about our garden.

We are shrinking the 80’x64′ space we’ve used for our main garden for the last two years by two cattle panels in length, so it is now 48’x64′. This year we also switched to raised beds. Andrew has diligently built 13 4’x8′ raised garden beds, which range from 8″-12″ tall. We do have one that is about 20″ tall, it was the first one built and we decided the rest did not need to be so tall. We will use this one to grow long root veggies, parsnips and carrots. We eventually want around two dozen beds in the space, but some will wait until we get the permanent greenhouse set up so we know what space we have in that last section of the garden.

So currently our garden consists of sopping wet mud and a dozen empty raised beds. We can’t have topsoil hauled in until the dump truck won’t be swallowed up by our yard. I can not believe how wet the ground is right now. And we live on a hill.

We do have five small raised beds on the side of the house that I managed to clean and seed before the monsoon season hit here in SE Indiana. We have swiss chard (a new food for us), pak choi, parsnips, red romaine lettuce, goldrush lettuce, spinach, english shelling peas, beets and carrots sprouting in those beds, though much slower than last spring.

Things aren’t as behind as they feel though. Our current greenhouse is teeming with life! It is filled with trays and trays of germinating seeds. To end this post, I will leave you with a list of what is sprouting in our greenhouse, what’s waiting for direct sowing and some photos of said sproutings. I hope we have enough room.

Fruit & Veggies:

• cauliflower
• broccoli
• cherry roma tomatoes
• amish paste tomatoes
• green zebra tomatoes (these are awesome)
• red zebra tomatoes
• asparagus (seeds finally sprouted!)
• artichokes
• celery
• chinese cabbage
• leeks
• small sugar pie pumpkins
• miniature white cucumbers
• black diamond watermelons
• butternut squash
• bull nose bell peppers
• brussel sprouts
• tomatillos
• cayenne peppers (well, the seeds are there, still no sprouts)
• jalapenos
• yellow squash
• corn (this was ridiculously fun to grow, they grow so fast!

Spices & Herbs:

• dill
• cilantro
• parsley
• sweet marjoram
• english lavender
• thyme
• large leaf basil
• sweet genovese basil
• lemon basil (from my mama)
• stevia
• chives
• peppermint
• spearmint
• bee balm
• german chamomile
• hyssop
• lemon balm
• sage
• eucalyptus (this is an experiment, grown as a houseplant)
• comfrey

Flowers:

• night phlox
• diablo cosmos
• love lies bleeding
• benary’s giant zinnias
• globe amaranth
• sea shell cosmos (oldest picked these out, gorgeous)
• radio calendula
• bunny tails
• evening sun sunflowers (from our own seed, collected last year)

Waiting for direct sowing:

• marshmallow
• swiss chard* (*successive sowing)
• cabbage
• red onions
• yellow onions
• beets*
• turnips
• radishes
• carrots*
• kale
• sugar snap peas (too late?)
• parsnips (better bed)
• pac choi*
• lettuces & spinach*
• okra
• corn
• chinese cabbage
• strawberry popping corn
• kidney beans
• black beans
• green beans
• burdock
• flax
• fenugreek
• rutabagas
• mongolian giant sunflowers
• more flowers for ambiance, providing I can find the room

If you’d like more info on our gardening habits, check out this post. You can also check out my absolute best money saving tip.