This year's edible garden plan

Last year's garden

Saturday, April 30, 2022

We were hoping that our addition would be done before the start of summer planning.  Unfortunately, time has run out for that hope to be reality!  I'll have to keep the garden small and start in pots since the garden bed is not in place yet. 

The main garden bed will be a combination of flowers and edibles.  It will be on the south and west sides of the house.  These are the warmest sides with the most direct sun.  The garden bed I used last year is on the northeast side of the house.  It has a great deal of shade and a hickory tree, which I found out gives off the same exudes from its roots as walnut trees which is toxic to many plants.  I still have my herbs and perennials there.  I will move them after the permanent bed gets prepared with good topsoil, compost, fertilizer and mulch.

Here is my garden plan for this year:

Blauhilde pole snap beans and Christmas speckles lima beans around one trellis

Heavy Hitter okra

4 tomato plants-large paste (Italian Pear), slicer(Cherokee Purple), a medium yellow storage tomato (Yellow Keeper), and a small fruit (Chocolate Pear)

3 eggplant-Casper, Rosa, AO Daimaru, and Amadeo

2 peppers-Ancho for chili powder and a burgundy sweet pepper for snacking

1 pickling cucumber (Bush Slicer)

2 summer squash-Trombetta and Cucuzzi-Serpente di Sicilia since they are resistant to vine borer

Perennial onions-potato onion type, when the new bed is in

Potatoes in the potato boxes

Snow peas in pots with peppers and eggplants-Avalanche 30" vine, Little Snowpea Purple 24" and Oregon Sugar Pod II a 28" vine

Dragon Tail radish in pot

New Zealand and Malabar spinach in pot (1 each)

Lettuce from seed- Royal Oakleaf, Grand Rapids, Butter King, Bronze Beauty, Celtic, Forellenschluss, Giant Blue Feather.

Lettuce and spinach plants-Bonnie's Mini red Romaine, buttercrunch, a green romaine and spinach in pots

Greens that stay sweet in summer-orach, amaranth, Red Malabar spinach, New Zealand spinach, Chard-Perpetual Spinach and Fordhook, Chinese Multicolor Spinach, Purple Stardust Iceplant, Hilton Chinese cabbage (1)

Herbs-dill, basil (Nunum, Genovese, Cardinal), cilantro, Lion's Ear, rosemary

No cantaloupe, watermelon, beets, heading cabbage or broccoli

Alpine strawberries from seed-Mignonette, Alexandria, and Regina

Flowers-zinnias, alyssum, marigolds, Cock's Comb, peach hollyhocks, Pride of Madeira, blue morning glory-Heavenly Blue and Keiryu Mountain Stream.  Have also started more bee and pollinator seeds in a pot outdoors.  For those that sprout, I will transplant to a native wildflower pollinator garden bed down by our shop.

Start of pollinator garden

I have to be stern with myself about what I will not plant.  This past year, I planted much less than usual and had plenty for fresh eating and preserving.  My eyes are always bigger than my space or need!