My Garden!

Why is it I invariably plan either on more garden than there actually is????  I would say wishful thinking - but even when I did market gardening on a half acre (intensively planted) I STILL bought more seed/berries and whatever than the land would hold!

I also used to grow plants from seeds in a greenhouse - and would sell them at the market, planting whatever was leftover (even if I already had planted what my market garden needed!)  It's about the year I raised 700 tomato plants!!!!!  Didn't have space in my market garden - so I looked at the hills - and planted them up and down hills, next to trees (BAD decision - those things can CLIMB!!!!).  I guess I went by the "if I raised and nurtured them from seeds, then they had to at least have a chance to grow" kind of philosophy!  Crazy huh!

And here - I don't even have that amount of land - just a back yard with 26 foot long beds that are 4 foot wide (each section in the bed 4 foot long) and 8 - possibly 9 (hopefully - tomatoes, peppers, eggplants!!!!) of those.

WHY do I plant so much?  I think it may be partly because of the "what it..." thought - what if we have a trucker strike, what if I can't get to the store because of a blizzard, poverty, flooding - whatever.  Part of it may be because of sheer habit.  But I KNOW MOST of the reason is because all those lovely seed packets sound so wonderful and I don't really want to make a choice between A and B, so I'll take both!  I'm greedy!  And - sigh - I don't like to make choices.  If a seed packet calls my name and says "Plant me" I respond with "Sure - and how many packets shall I get!"

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That being said - now to a pleasant procrastination - uh.... form of work.

Sweet corn - obviously the posts and fencing need to come out.

I DO want something to provide support for squash, etc.

I am going to move melons over to the side yard, possibly interplanted with flowers (and drifting onto the yard - straw or mulch of some sort covered areas.  HOPEFULLY it will look ok)

For Tomatoes, eggplant peppers - see below.

This WAS going to be the beans area - now I'm talking about putting tomatoes, Eggplants, peppers here - one row completely tomatoes and the other split 50/50 between peppers, eggplant.

Currently Raspberry bushes are here - but I'm moving them over to the North East side of the yard!  This will be the new Beans/Peas area - although I may need to switch this off with another area for this year.  I am thinking there is something about a bean mosaic??????  Maybe next year's potato area?

I  had thought originally that this would be the potato and root area.  It held tomatoes last year - so that may NOT be a good plan!  Actually I may put lettuce/salad crops here - definitely will need to trim that one blasted branch off - the one that almost touches the ground when there is snow and is entirely too high to reach when there isn't!  It puts too much shade here!  The rest of the garden gets sun at least the majority of the day!  If I switch things around - maybe potatoes and roots where I was going to put the beans and peas, Salad things here and tomatoes a little farther east - maybe.

I think I need a garden expander!!!!!  I had thought possibly of putting  just raspberry bushes here - but now am thinking  of moving beans and peas here.  For this year - and NEXT year do a bit more orderly march across the garden.

This WAS going to be JUST the top part of the flower garden.  HOWEVER now I am moving my greenhouse over  to the fence - mostly because the mower guy won't mow around it - only on the major part of the yard - and left the rest to weeds!!!!  :(
I DO  wish that I had a particular friend's ability with landscaping.  She had the most marvelous garden - GORGEOUS plantings of flowers blended with shrubbery - and veggies and fruits interwoven very attractively throughout!  Right in the middle of her front lawn she had a lovely pumpkin (Big Max!), several tomato plants, flowering cabbage and kale as well as a variety of flowers and shrubbery - and it looked gorgeous!  (She was also an artist in her own right as well!)

For the REST of the flower border - I may put the rose bushes closer here - but I don't want the rose thorns to scratch the kids next door - even though the mom is more than agreeable to roses (I asked)

This area gets a LOT of snow in the winter - enough to kill almost any permanent planting - so I'm thinking of a slight berm - draining water AWAY from the foundation - and putting flowering ground cover plants - still permanent - but not shrubbery -  and possibly additional flowering plants as well - not sure what or how - but SOMETHING needs to be done - it is UGLY and doesn't need to be!  Also I obviously need to repaint the brick - and power wash the  house siding!

VERY hard to see - but there is a line of trees going toward the back yard - all fruit trees.  So far there are  pie cherry, peach, apple (I need another one - the other one died back to the rootstock), Pear.  I still want to add plums (probably stanley prune plum and maybe/maybe not green gage plum).  I would also like to add blueberry bushes (mine croaked!).  I still need to figure out where to place the grape vine (singular - but I would like to add another as well!) and the blackberry bushes!