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

Homeward bound

This blog came about as something for my dad and I to keep in touch with, as we both share an interest in gardening, being more self sufficient, and transition to a more sustainable way of living. But sadly he lives in Halifax, Canada and I now live in Perth, West Australia... so you see the problem in being able to be part of one an others lives enough to really see what we're getting up to. So that's why this blog's been created... but now onto the juicy content!

So awhile ago I started a little veggie patch in my front yard consisting of two raised beds in which I added soil.. compost, veggies and mulch on top. It looked something like this.
In one I planted peas, lettuce, about 6 different types of tomatoes (most of which were heirloom varieties), and brown onions. In the other I planted zucchinis, broccoli, and watermelons. Then I went away to Canada for six weeks to go visit family and just got back a few days ago. This is what I got back to...

Tomatoes out of control!

Up close and personal with some roma tomatoes

Taller than I am!

Attempting to stake the runaways

The haul

 

 

 

 

 

Not easy to see, but these were a good two feet taller than I am, and I'm 5'8. Impessed!!