Crop Rotations and Fruit Plantings

With spring rapidly approaching it's time to start getting things ready for planting the new summer crop for 2013/14. With all the raised beds now built and ready to go, this will be the first summer season of full produce production potential. We also finished planting some of the last fruit trees around the back fence that we have room for, that being one dwarf avocado tree and a second dwarf peach to add to the one we already have planted that we received as a wedding present last season. I also stumbled across a very interesting program that lets you map out your garden plot, to keep yourself organized when it comes to crop rotations, plant spacings, etc. I've been having far too much fun playing around with it the last couple days and this is what I've come up with for what I'll be planting for this upcoming spring/summer season. I haven't had enough time to figure out all the cool tricks but so far find it useful just to keep me on track of what I need to plant where and how many for the size of the beds.

So that's what the gardens look like on paper... I thought I'd take a few pictures to show what it looks like in reality.

Bed 1 -Two varieties of lettuce and two rows of carrots
Bed 2 - Snow peas, broad beans and sugar snap peas
Bed 3 - The remaining kohl rabi, broccoli, cabbage and kale. Most of it will be pulled out and used shortly to make way for the new spring crops.
Bed 4 - Just planted zucchini, pickling cucumbers and pumpkin yesterday.
Bed 5 - This bed is still going quite strong from last year, most likely will keep the rainbow chard and fennel in until it stops producing, and plant the remainder of the bed with the new crops.
Bed 6 - Parsley and chives growing well, so again will plant around them with new season crops
Bed 7 - Onions and garlic bed growing well. Will look forward to tasting our first crop of both!
Bed 8 & 9 - Potatoes are growing insanely well. Dave is super excited to try his first home grown crop as he's been involved with these every step of the way. He's so cute when he gardens. :)

Bed 1

Bed 2

Bed 3

Bed 4

Bed 5

Bed 6

Bed 7

Beds 8 & 9

Herb Spiral & Pond

While my parents were down visiting us this summer we got up to a little garden DIY'ing to create a herb spiral and pond in an unused area around the side of our front deck. First thing first we had to clear all the garbage and junk that had accumulated along the side of the house we never used. Then once it was clean(ish) we pulled up all the bricks that looked to have been half layed and then forgotten about by previous owners. (see pile in first shot behind me)
Dad had done a bit of planning on his computer ahead of time and worked out how to lay the bricks down, how big it needed to be around etc, and then it was time to start a buildin'! It actually went much faster than I was expecting, with it being completely built by afternoon of day two. Once the bricks had been finished we piled some sand and crappy soil to build up the level in the middle where it was highest, and then filled the top layer with our nice soil we got from the Good Soil Co. in Midvale. Once we had everything in place mom and I planted all our herbs and pond plants we got for around the edge of the water feature. The very last shot is what it looks like as of today. Filling in nicely I think!!
Enjoy the photos. :)

First row of spiral, figuring out the spacing

Dad and me digging the hole for the pond

Placed!

Proud daddy filling the pond

Dave approves!

Progress so far.