Last year we had a very small and somewhat sad garden. We certainly had space. The previous owners had a large deer fences raised bed garden area. We lacked time to do a really good job. This year we planned ahead and did some garden renovation. Our results were surprising to us.
We cleared out the old beds, hacked out the weeds. Last winter I had put down cardboard to kill everything off and left the space open to the chickens over the winter. They pecked and picked apart the cardboard and we ended up with some nice compost.
After ripping out the old raised beds – we replaced with new. Moving equipment and people through the garden areas was tricky due to the full-length beds and how wide they were. We opted to make it a little smaller by adding a passage in the middle and making them a little less wide. This gave us plenty of room to maneuver.
Heavy amounts of weed cloth and mulch finished off the area. We already had started in the greenhouse and we were up against the clock as the weather was turning warmer.
Now several weeks later we have a huge crop of lettuce, kale, cabbage, and collard greens. The cauliflower and broccoli are on the verge of being ready to harvest. We have tomatillo’s, peppers, and a couple of artichokes that will be ready in a couple more week’s.
We also planted hops, onions, garlic, carrots, celery, and the usual herbs. I’m a little afraid of what the tomato’s’ will do – the plants are taking over their entire bed and the flowers are astounding. I might turn red from all the tomatoes this year. We have a few corn plants (Wish we planted more) that are doing well. Once we do some harvesting we will add some later summery vegetables and plan for fall squash.
On a side note – the bees also seem to be doing quite well – we added a honey super to both hives last weekend and will take some photo’s this weekend when we do an inspection.
Additionally, the Gophers are back – the cat’s stake out the holes, but no luck so far.