As promised, this post is to show off the farmette vegetable garden and all the stuff I had to weed and plant. Sister started a little CSA - she has three people in Milwaukee paying her to grow all this.
Peas in front row, then onion, spinach, lettuce, carrots, beets. Yum!
She's doing it organically, which means a lot of water, weeding, mulching, and compost. She has a couple of tricks for all you vegetable gardening newbies.
1. Double and triple rows. Sister plants one row, then a row 3-4 inches to the left, and a row 3-4 inches to the right. Especially useful if you have dogs that might misstep. If you have one row, missteps can really kill you; with triple rows you can consider missteps a way of thinning plants out.
A couple of triple rows of beets, freshly weeded. Compare this pic with the very last one on the post.
2. Mark your rows. Along with the regular seeding, sister puts in a radish seed every 6-8 inches. The radish seedlings come up in about 3-4 days, marking the row. Radish seeds are cheap and easy so if you really don't like 'em, pull 'em when the seedlings you want really come up. (and give them to us)
3. Plant, water, compost on the row, then mulch between the rows for weed control.
The week we were there we helped plant tomatoes. This picture was taken during the Caddyshack phase of planting.
We dug the holes, put a bit of compost in and mixed it with the soil from the hole, then transplanted tomato seedlings, then watered, then mulched around it. Sister let me finish with our secret way getting great tomatoes without blossom end rot - one Tums (with calcium) slipped into the soil about a foot away from the plant.
4. If your water is cold (ours was), let the water sit in a bucket to warm up for a little while. The seedlings won't go into shock. And let the dog have a bite!
The triple row of beets, a few days after the weeding. They really perked up.
farmette garden
June 18th, 2009 at 03:36 am
June 18th, 2009 at 03:53 am 1245297195
Beautiful garden. Thanks for telling and showing us.
June 18th, 2009 at 05:07 am 1245301625
June 18th, 2009 at 01:17 pm 1245331048
June 19th, 2009 at 10:46 pm 1245451596