Garden tour (long) (with pictures!)

[benhyr]

I've posted some photos, but nothing to kind of show off the scale so far :|(

So, I know it's indulgent, but I thought some people might enjoy the photos... and I love sharing photos :cool:

This is our first garden and the first time we've lived in a house with a yard.

We're trying not to water except for newly planted seeds and to settle the dirt when we transplant. Of course, given this spring, that hasn't been a problem at all !Splat!

This is a shot of the north garden taken from the southeast corner looking in. That's our big, untamed pile of mulch in the foreground from our great brush chipping adventure. As you can see, we've been putting that in between our beds as well.

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The fence is actually comprised of two parts. Along the bottom, we bent 2' coated chicken wire into an 'L' shape and buried it so that it's 2" underground and sticking out away from the garden. We then put 4' garden fence in front of that and left the top 12" unsecured. Of course, a 4' fence isn't much of a barrier to the true garden nemesis in our neighborhood, the whitetail deer. However, with those boxes in the way, they don't have a safe spot to land and haven't tried to break in yet.

To blend the north garden in with the rest of the yard and disguise the fact that it sticks out so far into the yard, we brought the house forward with this planting area.

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Aside from eating the geranium flowers, the deer and rabbits have left this alone. Everything is deer-resistant and we've caged off the few flowers we knew the bunnies would go after. We buried soaker hose under the mulch on the off chance that we need to water.

The real engineering work went down on the south side of the house. It was covered with rocks and sloped in three directions. This is a shot of the back with some strawberry boxes installed that DW decided she wanted after I had the rest built (that's my excuse for poor connection between the boxes, I swear!)

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And then I realized I could transform the rest of the hill by shoring up one side and get even more planting space:

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The back box has the rest of the strawberries as well as some onions. The front box has jalapeno peppers, lemon basil, genovese basil and oregano.

And here's the entire mess dead-on from the south:

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That small box in the front was another addition after DW realized we still had room and lumber :(

This was originally supposed to be three 12'x8' boxes but then the lumber yard substituted in 16' lengths for some of the 8' boards (same linear footage) so we decided what the heck, let's make big boxes.

The foreground, smallish box, is tomatoes and basil. Behind that is our melon patch. There are some cantaloupe, watermelon and some sort of fancy french melon. Directly behind that are carrots, broccoli, cabbage and cheddar cauliflower. Behind that are peppers and eggplant. Then, where you see most of the cages, are tomatoes and basil.... finally, to top of the terrace, are pole beans cucumbers (slicers and pickling) and two zucchini.... whew, that was tiring.

We had row cover over the broccoli bed. It blew off in a violent wind the same night we put it up. We were lazy and never put more up. So, today DW spent way too much time picking just-hatched caterpillars and eggs off the leaves. Whoever said cabbage moths are only active for the first part of the growing season was wrong... very wrong. Infestation (hopefully) avoided, we have row cover on again.

[benhyr]

Here's the lettuce box I built with my dad. It's on the deck just outside the kitchen

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Down the steps from the deck was a rock garden. We're turning that into an herb garden although it's only playing host to asparagus (first year so no harvest), garlic chives, parsley and lovage

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The chicken wire is only temporary until I'm happy with the fence in the back. Then I can get that down and get that horrible grass tamed back.

[benhyr]

Here's the front of the south garden:

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The front half of the yard is fenced with 4' garden fence with the chicken wire down low. Five feet behind that, we're putting up a second 4' garden fence. Deer can jump really high or they can jump really far but they can't do both. So, the going theory is that they can't clear a 4'x4' section... we'll see if that holds I guess. So far, so good. I half suspect to find a deer in between the fences one of these days though. The back half of the yard, out of sight of the neighbors, is protected by a 7' deer fence with chicken wire in front of that and draped on the ground.

Of course, we don't want to lose all of that valuable planting space between the two fences and so we've planted tomatoes, sunflowers sweet peppers, basil and bush beans... and we'll probably stuff more potatoes in there this year as well.

Directly under the tree is actually shaded for most of the day. DW is going to put a small picnic table there... well, as soon as I build it.

And, last but not least, our three sisters bed (although we're making it a four sister):

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It has corn planted in the hills and squash and pumpkins planted between the hills. Once the corn is up, we'll plant beans in there as well. The idea is that the beans help put nitrogen in the soil for the corn, the corn provides support for the beans, and the squash sprawls out and keeps all the weeds down. Plus the underside of the squash leaves are prickly and raccoon don't like crawling through that to get to the corn.

I'll post some of our big oops and goofs later on this thread so you experienced gardeners can get a chuckle or sympathize !thumbsup!

[fidgiegirl]

WOW! How big is your lot? This is amazing. How many years have you been working on it?

[benhyr]

WOW! How big is your lot? This is amazing. How many years have you been working on it?

0.6 acres but the garden is just on the sides and a little of the front so we're using less than a quarter acre so far.

We started work in March but not in earnest until April ;)

[kib]

Oh I am so jealous! My kingdom for a green place with actual soil! This is fantastic and I'm so thrilled to see front yard gardening, rock on! Or ... no rocks, on! :~)

If you don't mind, where do you live?

[treehugger]

Please continue to indulge yourself and share your pictures! :) I have such a brown thumb, that looking at pictures of successful gardens is a source of joy to me.

Kara

[leslieann]

WOW. What a lot of work, and what a great chance you have for really growing much of what you use. Plus the gardens are gorgeous! I love what you did with your three way hillside.

[benhyr]

Thanks all!

It's certainly been a learning experience in both starting seeds and building stuff...



If you don't mind, where do you live?

We're in Mid-Michigan in one of Lansing's east suburbs. Feel free to stop by, but expect to be put to work if you do ;) (in exchange for fresh veggies of course!)

[kib]

How long is your gardening season? Do you use hoop houses in winter? It looks so beautiful there, but how long is the "brown and gray period"? (I want your summer climate - All year. :~))

[benhyr]

How long is your gardening season? Do you use hoop houses in winter? It looks so beautiful there, but how long is the "brown and gray period"? (I want your summer climate - All year. :~))

We're zone 5b. Last frost this year was first week of May and USDA says we're frost-free by May 15th but I've been told by those wiser than me to plan on June 1st for putting tomatoes out ;)

There will be snow on the ground by Christmas but it won't be terribly bad until then... of course, that's all relative. We moved here from Minneapolis and I was raised in upper Michigan (snowed on the 4th of July one year there!). We are going to try hoops with greenhouse plastic and frost cover to grow spinach, kale and beets year-round. I think I'll try cloches for some tomatoes next year too and see what happens.

[Float On]

Looks really great and puts my 6 raised beds to shame - have you kept a tally of what you've spent on fence, wood, soil, etc.?? Do you know how to can/freeze or have you taken any classes?

[benhyr]

Looks really great and puts my 6 raised beds to shame - have you kept a tally of what you've spent on fence, wood, soil, etc.?? Do you know how to can/freeze or have you taken any classes?

Yep. We've kept a tally on those... but not on the hours spent (although I could probably ballpark that pretty close). We should come out ahead over buying groceries by next year but maybe actually by the end of this year.... not counting the time spent. Of course, that's been nothing but a really good workout program and we're not even paying a gym!

We'll be relying on DW's grandma to help us with learning to can. She's done it for umpteen years and wants to pass on the craft so to speak :)

[Zoebird]

beautiful! it's so lovely to see your hard work making something so beautiful and abundant! :)

[jania]

Thank you so much for taking the time to share all those wonderful pictures! All the work you've done is inspiring and all that green makes me want to get out of the desert. Everything looks like it is really coming along well so I know you will have many wonderful harvesting days ahead. Keep us posted.

[KayLR]

Good on you for all that hard work in such a short amount of time! Wow! I need to show my husband.

Look forward to more photos later!

[benhyr]

Good on you for all that hard work in such a short amount of time! Wow! I need to show my husband.

If that's the lead-in for a new honey-do list, he's not going to be happy with me! :D

[benhyr]

So, on to some of the goofs....

Well, the most obvious one is that we bit off a lot without a lot of experience. It's been pretty successful so far, but I'm half-convinced that a bit of luck is involved with that. We've read and researched a ton and we have some old hands to turn to for advice, but I wouldn't recommend starting this big. I had a very specific goal when we started (80% of our food from our garden within 3 years) which led to a bigger plot, but it would have been smarter to start smaller.

We started things way too early. We started a bunch (probably 600) seedlings indoors. Surprisingly good luck with most of them (marigold being the biggest exception, could not get that going to save our life). However, we were starting the seedlings with no home for them to move to. As a result, a good number of things ended up outside late. We potted up the tomatoes twice but still had them in their pots too long. They seem to be coming along ok outside but time will tell (the worst one of the bunch being the san marzano tomatoes.... which actually look to be doing better post-deer attack).

We didn't get the beneficials out in time. Everything would have been a lot better off if we had gotten our marigolds and dill out in our beds when we first planted everything else. These would have attracted more predators to take on the various pests we've been fighting. Floating row cover over the broccoli beds have been a huge help, but some more wasps would have been nice as well :)

We didn't adequately protect our garden early on. We have a flock of deer out back... and raccoons and woodchucks and rabbits. We had a deer come through and munch things pretty well (thankfully everything but one pepper plant recovered) because it never occurred to us that it'd just take the steps up that we hadn't blocked off.

We went seed crazy. To be honest, when you're buying seeds and another variety or another veggie is only $1-$3 for a pack of seeds, it's hard to not just impulse shop. We have a lot of varieties to try this year to see what we like, but that also means that I'm not going to be able to (easily) save some seeds to replant next year. I guess I'll get some practice in on isolating blooms and hand-pollinating, if I'm up for it, but it's going to be a hassle... on the plus side, we have gobs of seeds saved for next year still.

We bit off too many things at once. The only thing that really suffered from this were the blueberries. For now, we settled on up-potting them and they're going to live in containers for this year. I just have not had enough time to get an area prepped for them in the backyard (near a wetlands area that'll be perfect for them).

[benhyr]

and some of the benefits...

We used to go through one of those 10oz clamshells of spinach a week from the grocery store. We now have about twice that amount of spinach every week and we're not wasting packaging to get it.

DW couldn't stand snap peas from the store but loves the ones out of the garden

This has also led to simpler cooking. I made a huge batch of rice at the start of the week and we've enjoyed several spinach and snap pea stir fries. Between things like that, the salads, and simple things like baked potatoes with chives from the garden, my loaded cost for many of our meals is now under $1 for the two of us.

Food waste, to some degree, has always been a problem here. When you're cooking for two, it can be hard to use up all of, say, the celery you buy at the store. But, when you're only harvesting a bit of what you need when you need it, it's been easier to keep things from being wasted. I've found that I'm more invested in using it all too when I put the work into growing it.

The biggest, bestest benefit though, has been how useful gardening has been as exposure therapy for my wife... which she wouldn't mind me sharing with you all. She has OCD and one of the best ways to overcome it is a part of cognitive behavioral therapy called exposure response therapy. In a nutshell, one can sort of reprogram their brain to accept things again by small and increasing exposures. For my wife, one of her obsessions was around contamination and one was around harm. At the height of things, she was unable to walk in the yard because of obsessions that a rabid animal might bite her. Now, she's fearlessly (and without pausing to obsess at all) tromping and digging all through the garden. In the past, anything on her food would have caused her to not eat it. Now, if she runs across a slug, the slug gets tossed aside and the food just goes in the harvest bowl for dinner.

[Gingerella72]

This was awesome to view and read!

Please continue to share photos, and of your harvested/canned food as well! My gardening experience has been less than satisfactory this year so I'm living vicariously through others' gardens at the moment. :|(

[Amaranth]

Wow! Thank you for sharing all the photos from such a wonderful garden.

For canning, a good resource is the latest edition of the Ball Blue book. It has the latest information to make it possible to can safely.

[benhyr]

For canning, a good resource is the latest edition of the Ball Blue book. It has the latest information to make it possible to can safely.

Thanks for the tip. I do have the Ball book along with four or five other books... that's our big non-frugal weakness; books!

[Mrs-M]

What an awesome thread! All the pictures are such a delight! Thanks so much for them.

[iris lily]

These are great photos. I wanted to comment earlier but couldn't get the thread to load. I love seeing people's gardens.

[TMC]

I am a bit of a gardenaholic myself. Loved your photos. Any new ones to share?

[benhyr]

I am a bit of a gardenaholic myself. Loved your photos. Any new ones to share?

Thanks! I'll get a few more tonight or tomorrow and update the thread. I'm at war with grass right now (just took out about 50 sq feet and put in prairie wild flowers plus some other low maintenance plantings). and our cheddar cauliflower is making a head!

[benhyr]

We pulled about half of our potatoes today:

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Some were an early season, some were a mid-season, and some just didn't look healthy enough to finish out the season. We don't have a great way to weigh them but we brought in just over 7 gallons ranging in size from about as big as my fist to about as small as a pea. We damaged the skin on some of them so we'll be eating those over the next couple weeks.

This was our first time digging potatoes and we didn't really know what the heck we were doing. We gave some away to our next door neighbors, some to neighbors walking by, and some to a guy who stopped by looking for a lost cat (we got his cat for him too). This is what was left after the give aways.

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DW planted cheddar cauliflower. It's starting to form now. Will be fun to harvest!

[TMC]

You have inspired me to get out my camera. I had such fun seeing your garden, I will share mine. As soon as my son can show me how to get the photos on here I'll post some more garden porn. :)

[Mrs-M]

Magnificent!!! The Cheddar Cauliflower looks sooo darn yummy!