We're coming up to our second spring at this home. In 2010, we put in a little garden and fenced it off to make it a no-dog zone. We grew a random assortment of seeds that we received as a wedding gift the year before and a few seedlings that were started by a friends. We really had no clue what we were doing, planted way too densely, didn't do much thinning, probably didn't water very effectively and lost a lot of the harvest due to fall frosts.
In terms of direct food yields, the garden was not much of a success, but in terms of adding beauty, diversity and a place to learn more about growing food, it was excellent. This year, I hope to expand on the successes, and of course improve upon the growing food part. Our fall harvest, though small, was really quite delightful, especially considering that I would have never expected to be getting any sort of food out of my garden that late in the season.
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| Our vegetable garden in August 2010 |
One of the reasons for starting this blog was to share the lessons that I've learned in hopes that others can learn from my successes and my mistakes. I'd like to show that growing food is accessible and easy for all people, including the too busy/lazy/forgetful ones like me.
Some lessons learned from last year's vegetable gardening experience:
· Consider the mature size of a plant when deciding where to put the neighbours. While dense plantings have their advantages, planting so densely that you forget that there are other vegetables trying to grow under those massive zucchini leaves is probably not the best thing for either plant. Also, dense growing conditions were probably responsible for many of our vegetables going to seed before maturity.
· We really don't need that much lettuce, or radishes, at one time. This relates to the space issue too, but this year, I'm going to try to sow my salad crops in succession so that there are always some (but not too much) fresh greens available for salads
· Transplanting is a stressful event for young plants, and there are things that you should do minimize that stress. This includes a process called 'hardening off'. When I transplanted some tomatoes that were given to me last spring, I'm pretty sure I broke all the rules. As a result, those tomato plants didn't grow at all for their first month in the garden, and we didn't have a single red tomato by the time the first frost came in early September
· Beware of the limits of your growing season! I could have brought some of those green tomatoes inside and hopefully salvaged a few before the frost hit them, but I forgot. So I ended up with mushy green tomatoes that I could find no better use for other than the compost bin. I am now well aware that the average first frost date in my area is right around September 3rd, and will no longer be taking any chances.
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| Our last harvest of 2010 on October 23 |
We have many exciting things in store for this upcoming season, including building a new greenhouse with insulated beds, expanding our vegetable garden, building a herb spiral, further developing our forest garden, and starting a few vegetables from seed indoors.
