Our New Vegetable Garden

This year we decided to finally put in a vegetable garden. This spot was an old perennial flower garden that was very neglected by the previous owner. A few years ago, we cleaned it up and moved in a couple more plants. Still, it wasn't a great looking garden and keeping the deer out was a losing battle. Then the flood of 2011 wiped out everything. As it turned out, it was a blessing in disguise, at least for this spot. It really needed a complete overhaul and the flood accomplished some of that without that much work from us. I would have liked to save some of the plants, but oh, well.


Click on the photo for a better view.  

Last year, we began prepping the area by rototilling it several times and removing some limestone slabs that at one time made up a path to/from/around the garden. This year, we supplemented the soil with mushroom manure, top soil and peat moss then rototilled some more. We knew if there was any chance at all of a garden surviving the munching deer and rabbits it would have to be fenced in. We didn't want anything permanent or too expensive, though, so we bought some stakes and stucco wire to construct our 5' tall makeshift fence.

We were about a week or so late in planting because of the awful spring we had.    We actually planted some of the seeds before the fence went up because we knew we were getting a late start.  Besides, deer don't eat seeds.  ;)  We should have enough of the growing season left to have a bountiful harvest, but I guess that's up to the weather and Mother Nature.    Next year we hope to get an earlier start.

Deciding what to plant wasn't really that hard. We basically planted what we wanted to eat. Both of our parents had vegetable garden when we were growing up, so we started with what they grew then added and subtracted as needed. The wonderful lady at the nursery was a tremendous help and steered us towards some popular crops that we wouldn't have thought of such as kale, spinach, lettuce, and parsnips.

Here's what we are growing:
Lettuce
Kale
Spinach
Tomatoes (3 kinds)
Peppers (4 kinds)
Cucumbers
Zucchini
Brussels Sprouts
Carrots
Parsnips
Beets
Peas
Beans
Radishes
Potatoes (3 kinds)
Spaghetti Squash

Then on a whim and as an experiment we put in:
eggplant
leeks

So far, everything looks good. All of the crops started from seed have sprouted and the bedding plants are either growing or holding their own. It'll be awhile before we have anything to harvest, but we are hopeful and waiting in anticipation.   

By the way, there are a few other things you can see in the photo besides the garden:

• long grass - that's our new "meadow", I'll be writing about that in another post. 
• dead trees - they didn't come back after the flood two years ago.   I'll be writing about that when we start cutting them down. 

That's it for now.   I'll try to provide another update in a couple of weeks.