Category Archives: Garden Planning

Details about the garden plan, along with supplies and plant location.

Cucumbers and broccoli

Putting the cucumber plants behind (to the north of) the broccoli plants I think caused them to be a little delayed. The broccoli basically shaded the cucumbers until the broccoli plants were pulled out. Also, eight broccoli plants was probably too much, but I don’t know what a suitable early maturing replacement would be to get something out of the vacant spaces around the squash before they get too big.

Next year’s lettuce

This year, I planted “Black Seeded Simpson” leaf lettuce and wasn’t all that impressed. It wasn’t bad, but it was the only thing in the garden that I didn’t look forward to harvesting more of after I took the first bunch. The spinach also was a disappointment, but only because it all didn’t come up. Next year I think I will skip the leaf lettuce and just plant more romaine and spinach, or choose a red variety of lettuce.

More about next year

When I made the plan for this year, I tried to sneak a square of lettuce between the three pea plants. The thought on this was to spread the peas apart and give them more room on the trellis. Good in theory. In reality, the trellis got in the way of the lettuce plants and the peas enveloped them so they basically quit growing. Next year, the spots underneath the trellises are for plants that need them.

New stuff for next year

When planning the garden for this year, I thought I read that potatoes would only grow about 18 inches. Boy was I wrong! Mine are about twice that! Next year, I need to arrange to have these in the back, or perhaps in front of something early like peas or broccoli. Perhaps I could add a new bed of only onions and potatoes?

Winter planting plans

I scheduled some plantings for the fall, which can be seen on the calendar on the side of the (non-facebook) site. I will be planting broccoli, peas, romaine, spinach, and radishes. I was hoping to do a little more, but I waited too long to start anything else (cucumbers or more summer squash specifically).

What’s next?

I have 11 or 12 empty squares where the lettuce, broccoli, and spinach was planted, any suggestions? I think I am going to re-plant broccoli in the same spots for the fall (probably the peas too once they are done), but that still leaves 4 or 5 empty spaces.

Yield

The Plan page now has a yield column to show what was harvested for each plant type. I have had a difficult time finding out how much each square will produce with each type of vegetable. This should give me a good baseline for next year. Once we get into the season a little further, I will add a value column to help track what type of return I am getting on my investment.

Jalapeno isn’t looking so hot

While it looks like it is struggling, it isn’t getting worse. I really hope its the cool rainy weather and that it will come back. Just to be sure, I started a backup which will be a bit behind the rest, but hopefully that will extend the harvest.