Clearing the way for the gardens - Side and Front

This afternoon the family finished digging out the last juniper bush from the bed where our main garden will go.  It put up a mighty fight and its roots ran deep, but with a lot of help from The Boy, its gone.  Shortly, it'll be on its way to the dump to be chipped up.

We also removed the first of a number of juniper bushes from the bed in front of the garage. 

With that bed being between 8' and 12' deep and the entire length of the garage, it's a pretty large space to fill.  Wifey's idea -- and I think it's great -- is to put that space to use.  Currently, we're planning to put three artichoke bushes spaced evenly in the bed, have an arbor for some kiwi, and herbs along the path way.  I imagine more will come, but that's what we have for now.

Where will the garden go?

Where will the garden go?  Why, next to the driveway, of course!

Next to the driveway is a respectably-sized patch of grass.  It's around 40' wide and 80' from the street to the maple tree (right side of picture behind the yucky swath of Juniper).  There is a slight slope down toward the shed at the woods line.  The plan is to set up a rectangular garden inside that area with that Japanese maple roughly in the middle.  The area immediately around the Japanese maple will eventually have a more ornamental feel to it.  I'm thinking an arbor on the north side, a park bench underneath, and some sort of flowering climbers on either side.  Thus: there is shade and relaxation in the garden surrounded by the crops.

Prior to taking this picture, there had been a more sizeable bed where that Japanese maple is.  We have since removed four misshapen Juniper bushes, a poorly maintained Hydrangea, two small sad rose bushes, a few large weeds, and a rotting ornamental birdhouse.  In digging up that vegetation, we found a buried plastic border and a lot of landscape rocks also buried under grass and dropped Juniper needles.  There is a single Juniper stump left in that area (see picture below).  I've been gradually chipping away at digging it out.

The plan for this fall is to roto-till an area approximately 25' wide by about 35' long.  That would start roughly even with the upslope (south-facing) side of the Japanese maple area and head down roughly even with the southern face of the maple tree.  I will then install fence posts at appropriate distances apart and build fencing (design still in debate with Wifey who insists that "it must be pretty!") and a gate.  Adjacent to the property line (west side), we will also have another rectangle broken down into a few segments to allow for permanent plantings of asparagus, onions, and strawberries as well as three small segments for the kids to have their own gardens.

I also need to have a few extra inches of organically-amended topsoil trucked in to get us started.  If that central bed with the Japanese maple is an indication of the rest of the soil, the property has around 3" of topsoil with clay underneath.  I'd like there to be at least 5" of topsoil when I get started.  More is better.

By the time I'm done building this garden next Spring, the idea is to have the garden roughly 25'x65' (not including the permanent plantings and kids' gardens).  It'll be interesting to see what we actually end up with.  I'll be shocked if something doesn't get in the way of that.  I just don't have that kind of luck to have everything go completely seamlessly.

I'll sketch everything out at some point and post on here, but work has been busy and the home life has been moving at light speed since the family moved in (a month ago tomorrow).

As for fall plantings, I'm hoping to put in Egyptian Walking Onions and Garlic so we can harvest that next year.  Anything else is gravy.

March 2015 - Sept 2016. What happened?

Its been a year and a half since I last posted and what a busy time its been.

In early April 2015 my family and I came to a crossroads.  In a single day, our townhouse neighbors decided to erect a very large, ugly and cheap (plastic) shed in their backyard, we lost the pussy willow that provided us much enjoyment, and I had a really bizarre encounter with a neighbor from across the street.

To paraphrase an old baseball idiom: three strikes, we were out.

Immediately, we put all our efforts into fixing up our home for sale.  In mid-June, we put the house up for sale.  A week later we had a contract and at the end of July, the house was sold.

This began the longest year of our lives.

The short version is that it took us a year to find a home that was a "reasonable" price, that provided flexibility for family growth, that wasn't a complete disaster, that had some acreage, that was in a county with reasonably low taxes and a relatively agrarian approach to life, that was a driveable distance from my job, and was in a county with good schools.  There were a number of homes we came across that met a few of those requirements, but only a few that met all.  We missed out on two that we were interested in with one of those being one we really loved.

Three hundred sixty two days from the sale of our townhouse, we closed on the purchase of our new home.  On July 28, 2016 we became homeowners again.

Since then we've done a ton of painting, done some updating, moved the family from Ohio where my inlaws graciously hosted Wifey and now three (!!!) kids, and have been working to make the new house feel like a home.  And we've been discovering ways the previous homeowners neglected taking care of the house.  But that's for another day.

And I'm finally chipping away at the garden I've always* wanted to have.  It doesn't exist yet, but it's close.


* Blogger's note: In this context, "always" is defined as "since 2009."

New seeds and a trip to the plot

A much delayed blog update.

I started some more tomato seeds from leftovers from last year.  Old Virginia.  Unfortunately, I needed to order more San Marzano so that's taken a while to show up. They finally got here this past Thursday.

After a trip to the beach (Groupon) this weekend, The Boy and I made a trip to the plot.  We turned over all the boxes as well as most of the pots out there.  I say "most" because I somehow overlooked the two right by the gate. 

We moved the cucumber/watermelon trellis to be in two boxes near the gate.  Change of pace and an attempt at limited crop rotation for the two spaces that can accommodate that thing.

We also planted some stuff!  Lettuce, radishes, kale, snow peas (2 boxes and a pot), and carrots (2 boxes).  I'm skeptical that the carrots will do anything.  I suspect it's still too early/cold for them, but they're old seed and no big loss if nothing germinates.  It's an experiment.  I typically never have my act together this early in the growing season so it'll be interesting to see what happens with the carrots.

I need to generate a new layout for the plot.  The Boy and I had to mark up a 2014 layout after checking 2013.  Really glad I started doing the layouts a few years ago.  It's fantastic to take a look at stuff and try to make sure I'm rotating everything as well as I reasonably can.

Seeds are sprouted. What now?

The bulk of my seeds have been sprouted for a week or so.  Some watermelons haven't come up yet as well as some peppers and tomatoes.  No big shock there.

I'm finding myself with a bit of a challenge, unfortunately.  We're still in the townhouse despite our perennial plan to get out "next year" (sigh!) with this being our 5th year of that plan.  I digress.

The challenge.  The Boy will be six years in a few months.  He's a very active 6 yr old and has Legos and whatnot all over his dresser where I used to put the seedlings until I was ready to transplant and put them on the grow shelves in the basement.  So there's no room in there.

Our daughter's room is kept dark since she's still taking naps.  She also is an exceptionally grabby 2 yrs old.  Far moreso than The Boy was at her age.

For now, we have the sprouts in the kitchen, but that is neither as warm as their bedrooms (which are south-facing) nor does it get all that much sunlight being on the north side of the house.  As a result, they're getting quite leggy. 

I could put them under the grow lights early, but that room in the basement just isn't as warm as elsewhere in the house.  Quite a quandary.

Back to the Blog - looking back at 2014, planning for 2015

Been a while since I posted to the blog.

My resolutions this year are to not ignore the blog and to not neglect the garden.  This year, I intend to return to what I did back in 2013; I'm going to resume weighing my produce and taking pictures as it comes in.  I find it gives me another reason to post to the blog.

So.....looking forward!  I started seeds yesterday.  Don't know what made me want to start it at this point; could be because it was another cold January day in Maryland.

Thus far, it's the same stuff as last year:

• San Marzano and Old Virginia tomatoes
• Cayenne and Carolina Wonder (bell) peppers
• Basil
• Blacktail Mountain watermelons
• Lacinato (dinosaur) kale
• Balcony Petunias
• French Marigolds

I still need to start my cucumbers.  I'll also be direct sowing sugar snap peas, lettuce, carrots, and radishes (both daikon and standard).  Wifey wants to experiment with purple carrots and potatoes this year.  Hopefully, we actually get around to it.

These containers actually have organic seed starting mix in them.  I just use the containers from year to year to save on cost.

The Fall produce is producing

On my way from the farmer's market this morning, I stopped by the plot to see how things are doing and to do a little weeding.

The first sight wasn't a pretty one.  The post for the hose reel had rotted at the ground level and fallen over.  That post will need to be replaced.

Thankfully, the lettuce bed on the other side of the bench wasn't harmed when the hose reel fell.  The lettuce is looking great.  We'll be having some salads this week, I suspect.

Similarly the two beds (each) of the daikon and kale are also growing nicely.  I think we should be able to start harvesting the kale this week.  The daikon is still a ways off despite the nice greenery.