February 6, 2009: 2009 Garden Plan Update (edited)

* I had a few errors and omissions in the original post, so here is the edited version. See, Sinfonian, I'm not planting all determinate tomatoes, I had them labeled wrong! I also left out Daphne's pumpkins, and had the sugar snap peas too close to the potatoes...after viewing a photo of last year's garden, I saw that I had more room there than I had remembered . I've also included a view of the garden in its entirety.

You knew I couldn't stick with my original plan, didn't you? Well, you were right, I just had to mess with it some more. Heck, half the fun of gardening is in the planning!

Here's my new plan for the east garden. I've decided to use my three-tube sprinkler hoses this year, upside down, covered with mulch and turned on low for a "poor man's drip system". They show in the photos as the green strips through the beds (they will run through all the beds, not just where shown here).

*Note: after you click on the photo to enlarge it, you might have to click on it again for the full size, so you can read the labels.




The unused dog kennel will make good 6' trellises for the peas and pole beans. The bare spots will eventually have some type of shade loving plants.




And, finally, the north garden.




The north garden tomato bed plan assumes the seeds I plan to start actually grow.

And here is the garden in its entirety.




There will also be a west garden available for more tomatoes, if I need to use it. I'm still working on Mr. H to move the north garden fence out another 5 feet, which would give me room for more container plants.

16 comments:

  1. I really enjoyed seeing your layout, granny. Wow, that's alot of stuff! I sure do look forward to the pictures later, with everything full and lush.

    EG

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  2. I think this is just about my final plan, EG. It's actually quite close to my first plan, but with lots of tomatoes added due to all the free seeds I got! I still have to find a spot for the pumpkin seeds Daphne sent, but they might be a good candidate for one of your buckets. Or maybe at the south end of the tomato bed.

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  3. In the words of the veggie tales: You are making me hungry! It looks cool granny. I'm thinking I will make frugal girl's pancakes tomorrow with your syrup. Carolynp

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  4. So did you make those pictures with some fancy software or what? What a beautiful looking plan. I also can't wait to see it all done :) My garden plan is sketched in pencil on graph paper... though it's probably good because things change so much.

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  5. Bethany, I just used Irfanview (free at http://irfanview.com), with pictures copied from Kitchen Garden Seeds (they have gorgeous little pictures in their on-line seed catalog). I put them all together using MSPaint and an old PhotoDeluxe program, on a scan of graph paper. It's fun!

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  6. Carolyn, it makes me hungry too! I'll take a stack of those pancakes ;-)

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  7. I was just going to ask how you do these plans but Bethany beat me to it. Great looking plans Granny!

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  8. Beautiful lay out! (and so much space!) It makes me want to rework my plan entirely...

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  9. Granny, that is a TON of produce! Bravo. Very well thought out and planned. You'd think you were retired and sitting in front of your computer all day... hmmm, hehe.

    So, nothing but determinates huh? Are you at least succession planting them? I can just see you getting 100 pounds of tomatoes all at once and nothing more for the rest of the season, hehe.

    Great work!

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  10. Jen, thank you! You may just be the reason I get my way about making it larger. I showed Mr. H your cold frames, and he agreed our three north beds would work great for those additions...which would mean moving that fence! I've been fighting him to move that fence since the day he pounded in the posts!

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  11. Sinfonian, the six tomato plants along the fence in the east garden are all determinates, all of the same variety. The other six, in the north bed, are one each of the seeds I got from WinterSown, which include a cherry and a grape tomato. That bed will be my experiment to find what does well in my area for future planting.

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  12. Much more organized than I am- that's for sure. Your plans look great. I'll have to search for some software to do what you do.

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  13. Tessa, everything can be done in MSPaint, except skewing those north gardens! I have to use my old PhotoDeluxe for that, and it loves to lock up my computer and quit responding, just as I'm ready to save my work. If I hadn't angled those gardens.....:-)

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  14. Well, I just wanted to pop in a tell those interested that I found some garden design software on CNET (the only place I will download from!). Here is the link http://xrl.in/1jn9

    Now maybe we can make great layout like you do Annie's Granny!!

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  15. Tessa, another one that's fun is GrowVeg It has cuter veggies than many of the other programs. There was a guy on the SFG forum who was developing a new program, but I haven't heard how that one is coming along yet.

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