Has anyone started planning their garden?

[2curlydogs]

I'm going to try and kick this board back to life.

I've been using Smart Gardener to plan our layout this year so I can get my seed orders in.  It seems to be nice, but some of their programming must be off cause it was placing things like beans next to onions (bad companions!), even though it says it takes that into account.

But! It's letting me speed up my planning process, which I like.  And then I can graph out on paper where things ACTUALLY got planted (I was looking at my plans from the past 6 years and realized that some were kinda inaccurate - where I had planned to plant things didn't actually end up being planted there. KWIM?).

Excited for spring.  New things I'm growing include watermelon, popcorn and broomcorn.  H is going to build me A-frame trellises (hinged at the top for easy storage) for growing pole beans (and creating nice partially shady areas to grow spinach and lettuce). Last fall he built me an onion drying/storage rack, which makes me so happy.

I'm scaling the tomato plants to 3.  Last year with 4 plants I harvested at least 600 tomatoes.  I have gallons of tomato sauce in our chest freezer in the basement, plus bags of tray frozen ones for more saucing this winter.  Increasing the eggplants to 3 (I've discovered that tomato-eggplant sauce is possible the best pasta sauce ever).  Adding carrots and radishes back in.  Keeping the rest the same, I think.

Anyone else?

[treedimensional]

I planned my garden once, and planted it once. I only replant when something dies or becomes diseased. Basically now I'm just waiting for it to mature and provide shade.
Now, when annuals come into season at the end of March/beginning of April, I'll blow a few hundred $ on them so my garden can have lots of color all year.

[2curlydogs]

Jan 18, 2013 11:14:18 GMT -5 treedimensional said:

I planned my garden once, and planted it once. I only replant when something dies or becomes diseased. Basically now I'm just waiting for it to mature and provide shade.
Now, when annuals come into season at the end of March/beginning of April, I'll blow a few hundred $ on them so my garden can have lots of color all year.

Oh, I haven't even started on our perennial plans for the year. Just the veggie garden so far.

I think we'll be implementing part of the landscape plan we had drawn up for the backyard last spring (we didn't do anything because of the drought).  We just need to decide what.  It would cost over $3K in just plant material to do the whole thing at once and we're likely looking at a new car this year, so that's really not feasible.

I think we're probably going to plant part or all of the beds along the west fence line and maybe the white swamp oak in the back 1/4 of the yard.  And possibly filling in some of the perennials by the rain barrel (so the dogs stop digging for grass roots there :S).

[treedimensional]

Sounds good! I don't grow edibles. I have a very small yard and shade is my objective (trying to establish new trees ASAP). I'm very lucky to live in a community where I have lots of affordable fresh produce options.

[nomad100]

Right now I am still in the drooling over catalogs phase. 

We are hoping to do some major changes in the garden (putting up a real fence, adding stairs from a small raised deck, several more raised beds, moving shrubs and taking out a small scraggly tree) and backyard (taking down a couple of big oaks that have issues, adding a firepit and getting some fruit trees to put in pots).

I am a bit overwhelmed.

So I am soothing myself (since we are doing most of the work ourselves) by looking at all the pretty pictures!

[NitaX]

No and I really need to get on it.
My main goal this year is to get my arborvitae to serve as a privacy screen along the backyard.

[2curlydogs]

nomad - love your avatar.

I feel you. We do all of the landscaping work ourselves, too, so it can be crazy overwhelming. I think two years ago H re-leveled our brick paver patio. That was a huge deal.

I know H wants to transplant the last remaining apple tree in our yard to my sister's prairie (he hates the mess). I want to move the japanese tree lilac that's halfway blocking our gate, possibly just putting it in the hole of the former apple tree, so we can put in the walkway path from our garage to our backyard. The previous owners planted it there for screening of the neighbors to our east, not knowing, I think, how big it would get.

[cvn69nva]

I just finished ordering my seeds and plants for this year. Tomatoes, peppers, leeks, mustard greens, collards,kale, sage, basil, rosemary, carrots and some new supplies. My parents had asked that I grow some greens so that they can make more salads this year.

[moreace01]

I just put in my seed order. This is the first time I've ever had a garden and I have no idea what I'm doing (and actually - I'm unsure if I will have a garden - I have to wait and see if I get a slot at the community garden in my neighborhood - I live in a condo...).

I got:
Green Arrow Peas
Florence Fennel
Lettuce mix
Kentucky Wonder Beans
Dragon Carrots
Musselburgh Leeks
and I got kind of crazy with tomatoes:
Black Cherry tomatoes
Cherokee Purple
Jaune Flamme
Black Krim
(shoot - I thought I bought some orange cherry tomatoes too...oops).

I'd like to maybe add in some rhubarb and maybe strawberries? I may be a little overzealous that this is all going to work out.

I have herb planters off my balcony and usually do sage, parsley, cilantro, basil, rosemary, thyme and mint.

[statlerwaldorf]

I'm thinking about:

Green beans
Broccoli
Silver Queen Corn
Eggplant
Romaine lettuce
Peas
Spinach
Green peppers
Radishes
Squash

On the fence about onions and garlic. Will probably plant some herbs. I am planning on doing a lot more corn than last year. I'm cutting back on tomatoes. If I do tomatoes it will only be one or two plants, but they aren't high up on my priority list.

I need to figure it out soon because I need to start some of my seedlings in March.

[housegeek]

We probably wont garden this year, but I did order nearly 30 trees from Arborday (13 free) that should be here within a month And if we get the fence up soon, I'll make a smaller fenced area and try for a couple tomato plants, and maybe come cucumber/zucchini plants.

[mrsreynolds4]

I have several garden areas that are in various stages. I did *a lot* of planning last year but some other expenses came up & I didn't end up buying everything. I have one part-shade bed that is still dirt. Another one I ended up tossing some $1 tomato plants in, just so I wouldn't see more dirt.

I am totally re-doing my vegetable garden layout this year. Adding a couple of SFG beds in hopes to grow more lettuce, broccoli, etc for longer. I may put a couple of tomato & peppers in one too. I'll still do some of that in the ground like before though.