Garden Layout...

[Mountain Heritage]

Anyone have any pictures of their large garden layouts? I am working on figuring out my layout for next year and planning my rotation of my veggies. I have seen a fair number of people who incorporate flowers and herbs into their gardens. I am guessing some are doing it for bees and different smells to ward off pests? I would imagine the bees doing their polinating job would be good for some plants? Just looking to see pictures and styles of the way people plant things? I have been reading about some guys who plant their veggies in close, wide rows with multiple veggies close together and cut down on the number of walking paths in their garden. I have seen some pictures of guys with onions planted like 4 or 5 rows wide in a 2 foot wide row? Just curious how everyone does their planting and such. How you guys deal with weeds short of weeding by hand - already have LOTS of practice doing that!

[V@rmint]

I deal with the weeds by mulching all of the non planted areas with straw. as the garden grows, I mulch the remaining open areas. The few weeds that grow thru the straw are easy to pluck out by hand. Mulching also helps to conserve moisture. After the garden is finished producing, just till the straw into the soil increasing your organic matter.

[IAfarmer]

I use straw for mulch, but we tried some experimental red carpets at work, so I put some in the garden as well. Due to it's success, I am considering using landscaping mat in the garden on the smaller items. The straw worked will, but the crabgrass still made it through.

As for the new sweet corn gardens I just tilled up(.3 acres not pictured), it'll be my kids and a hoe in their hands until I get a brinley cultivator for the 1450, or a 3pt on my X700 for a cultivator.

I keep an excel file gridding out the garden to keep record of what grew, and how to rotate. The only flowers I plant are marigolds, as they help keep a multitude of pests out. I also plant beans in with the potatoes, but it is hard to harvest the beans once the potatoes are in full bloom. There are many books on compainion gardening, so I do mix up things, like tomatoes and carrots, etc.
Great topic!

[Mountain Heritage]

This is what I am looking for in the way of input! Thank you! LOVE your barn IAfarmer. Lucky to have that sight to enjoy every day. I was thinking of putting some straw down this year, but I am a little anal when it comes to looks. Looking at the straw when its first put down is great, but as it starts to rot down and turn brown its not as nice looking. Don't really want to keep adding straw throughout the summer. But then on the other hand do I want to keep pulling weeds all summer too? I was talking to a guy on the Fire Department yesterday and he said he has had lots of success with the pole beans on a tee pee type trellis. He said I should definately try it once to see the difference between the pole & bush beans. He was saying he tried garlic one year too, but he was saying he had to plant it in the fall for it to be growing as the frost is coming out of the ground? Didn't realize you had to plant it a year before getting a crop off it?

I don't have leaves around my yard to throw onto the garden as mulch - I'd have to go to the neighbours to steal theirs. So was thinking of getting some nicely composted hay and cow manure from the farm in the spring and put it over the garden before I till it up to help bring up the compost/mulch factor in the garden. Would likely help out with the amount of fertilizer I need to add. Only thing I am worried about is adding more new weeds to my garden by using this stuff?? That in itself is a whole other ball of wax! I have some weeds in my garden, I honestly have never seen in my life until I moved to this place. I am worried about introducing too much more stuff to my garden.

Definately going to try mixing things up this year with plantings as well as mixing some things together while growing. I normally plant radishes with my carrots to help keep the soil broke up so the carrots can push through with little problems. But I am starting to think my soil really isn't as heavy as my Grandparents soil was - that was a definate for their garden. So I might just skip that this year and plant them seperate?

I heard on the weekend that instead of using potatoe dust for the bugs, you catch some of the potatoe bugs, put them in a jar and let them "forment" for a week or so then add some water to them and shake them up and punch some holes in the jar lid and shake the water out over the leaves? I guess this is the organic way of doing it? The bugs won't eat their own I am thinking? Anyone ever hear of this?

Here is original garden I planted when we first moved, it turned out good considering it would never get planted before the first week of June just because of the water in the soil. I have since moved it to another location on the back lawn.

Garden 2006 II.jpg

Garden 2006.jpg

[ACecil]

Great garden pics, Mike!

[IAfarmer]

Thanks for the barn comment! We are hoping to restore it someday.

Straw can turn ugly, but works very well. Since my garden is "behind the barn" I am not too worried about looks, plus, as the plants get bigger, they become the focal point.

I am attaching a picture that shows the red carpet I used. I'll use green next year, as we have a whole box of it at work that we are not using for experiments this year. As you can see in the picture, it was a very weedy year, especially since we had about 15 inches more than usual rainfall.

Bug fermentation works, or, you can make a chewing tobacco tea that works as well. There is great info out there for organic methods that work well, but would not make sense on a large scale basis.

Your piece of the world is very beautiful. Nice garden.

Winter is the best time of the year for talking gardening. The catalogs are showing up in the mail now!!!

[Mountain Heritage]

Thanks. The wife swears I spend more time with the garden and the lawn than what's normal - she wishes she was lawn some days so she could spend more time with me. :biggrin2.gif:

Yes, your right that the plants soon become the focus of a garden once they start to fill out. I don't have the luck of having a great building like you do to "hide" the garden behind. Oh well, not going to complain...just wish I did have one too! That carpet sure works! Definately needs to be green for this year though. Unless some model plans on walking down your "runway" in your garden....then that would be another story!

Yes, with the talk of a foot of snow on the way this weekend - yes, gardening is a great topic! Since I don't have a blower on my Cub - I am kinda left out on that talk with others. I am still in the old days with a walk behind blower. I place about 4 or 5 orders via e-mail for seed catalogues last week. I figured if they are offering them for free, I have no trouble looking at what products they have to offer. After I figure out my garden layout and what all I am planting this coming year I should probably jump on the band wagon of searching out supplies I will need for it too. I HATE not being ready when the ground is ready. I need to make up a few more trellis's for my garden and figure out what I am doing about my raspberries this year. I think I will put them into a raised bed outside of the garden just like I did with the strawberries.

I will have to search out the pictures I took of the garden while weeding it this year. OMG! No joking, I had weeds at the one end of the garden that were almost 16 inches tall! What a crappy job of weeding that stuff out. Looked great when I was finished but it took almost 4 hours to complete just that end of the garden. I guess I just need to make sure this year that I PLANT something at that end to make sure the weeds don't grow.

[johncub7172]

Last year was my 1st. time raising a garden. I made a number of small beds, like for the carrot bed, I'am reading that carrots do well in a sandy-mix soil. Then I got my garlic bed which is raised and was planted around the end of October-1st. of November. For weed control here, its just a little elbow grease using my hoe. My pickel patch will be in the same patch, but I'am going with the tee-pee trellis. The main garden is planted in rows 3ft. apart and I make the rows into nice, big long mounds of soil. I run my big tiller down the rows and that has worked well on making the weeds go by-by! Then I just simply pull the weeds from between the plants...as they pull as eazy as pie from the mounds. Once the plants grow out more, the weeding is very eazy and not a bother as I'am checking out each of my plants. Then I swich over to my mini tiller when the plants grow much bigger. I'am always using my hoe to pull up the tilled soil on to the mounds. I'am not yet a fan of using plastic over top of my mounds.....they get no rain and the soil has always hardend up not letting the roots grow much. I did add a pick-up load of aged-peat humus because if its not aged, you will have alot of weeds growing! I spent most of the summer just making all these gardens and look forward to next year. I also have a compost pile that will be ready to till and add to the main garden this spring. Lots of planning to do this winter for sure!

[IAfarmer]

I like the carpet, like my red in the picture, better than plastic as it allows the moisture in. Some weeds grow, but not nearly as bad as if there was only straw.

The tilling works well for weed control, but really hurts soil structure. I prefer to till no more than twice a year (fall, and spring, right before planting). In fact, my tiller only tills in the spring for what is being planted, such as the potatoes in early April, the lettuce ground in early April, first corn planting late April, etc. The longer the ground sits undisturbed, the better it is for worm development, increased moisture retention and reduced erosion. A light working with a hoe or hand cultivator in the top inch or so hurts nothing, but repeated tilling can be harmful.

If I could develop a tiller that would till in 6 inch strips, I would, as strip tilling in farming has benefits that could transition to the garden. The idea of pulling a few tines has crossed my mind, but I have not had the time to play that way yet.

Gardening is a fun passion. There are so many opinions out there, it can be very confusing!

[johncub7172]

Thats a good point to rember about the tilling. Now, my friends did the mound and plastic thing and their plants were all small as the groung seemed to harden up.