Formulating Garden Plans for 2014

Today was a beautiful sunny day outside. We walked through the yard and garden checking the flower beds out and the vegetable beds out. We were discussing how to plant our rows this year. We are going to rotate the potatoes to the rock bed. We are cutting back the size of the potatoes we grow this year to ½ maybe even down to a 1/3 of what we planted last year. We are unsure exactly how much we should scale it down. We had too many potatoes last year. We won’t have to make new beds this year because we are doing this. We want to experiment planting in the French intensive gardening method.

”There are three points that,in combination, distinguish this system from all others:
1). very thorough soil preparation, incorporating all nutrients before planting;
2). preparation of beds rather than rows, each bed mounded up above normal grade to form a body of soil that warms quickly, drains well, and takes in air easily; and
3). close planting…..

Close planting gives greater crop productivity, stifles weeds, and acts as a living mulch- conserving moisture and regulating soil temperature. Repeatedly thin plants as they grow..”

We want to plant seedlings which is easier to space them than seeds. We want to rotate seedlings when the crop is done producing. I have read on it. Now we need to configure the beds in our growing space. Right now we are just standing and scratching our heads. We know it can be done and that it should increase the variety of vegetables we plan to grow. It should also increase productivity of the vegetables that we eat the most of all winter long.

We are trying to decide what projects we will have this year. We need to put horse manure on the Potato box, green house and flower beds. We plan to transplant the strawberries and Rhubarb into the vegetable beds. Transplant the chives. We need to dig up my mint plant and put it in a planter on our patio. Oh by the way it already has new growth on it. The green house needs maintenance. We need to write a list down. We need to set a time frame as well.

We have been debating making new beds for two years. I have been reading on the net and gardening books that I have at home. We go through all the material together and discuss it. We are trying to make the garden as efficient as we can be. We are bravely daring to try a different method.The difficult part is creating the space design of the beds.

There are signs of spring every where. My daffodils have popped up and a few of them have unopened flower buds. My lilies are coming up. I found my first blå sippor/wind flower for the season… SPRING IS HERE! I just saw the weather forecast for tomorrow. It said 10 C. That sounds like heaven to me.