Here’s the final plan for the edible garden this year. Tomatoes, melons, & cucumbers will be string trellised. Most of the warm-season crops will mulched with black plastic, and grown under clear plastic hoop houses until mid-July.
Last year was our second full year at Half Full Farm with a dedicated edible garden space. We have a total of twelve 4’ x 8’ rasied beds behind high fencing, along with our beehives – which, so far, has managed to keep the bears out of them. If you saw last year’s post, you’ll see we had a fairly aggressive list of edibles, inlcuding multiple varieties of our favorites like melons, tomatoes and peppers.
In considering what went well:
We had successful harvest of melons, which was a real surprise, given how dfficult they are to grow in our area
We had a good tomato and eggplant harvest – but a lousy pepper harvest
We harvested potatoes a plenty
Beans and peas did well
We are still eating down our carrots, here in January
We still have stockpiles of garlic
We had a good supply of herbs in the last half of the season and into the fall
Our new drip irrigation system was a vast improvement compared to the overhead waterer we used in the prior year
On the other hand, we had some problems:
I couldn’t grow a decent brassica to save my life. I harvested a few pounds of Brussels Sprouts, but had no success with cabbage or broccoli, spring or fall
We had a decent supply of lettuce, but didn’t do a great job of succession planning so had lots of gaps through the year
I had some late season beets, but struggled with them
I had an unreasonably hard time growing radish. If you even accidentally say the word “radish” near dirt, they grow, so I clearly am an idiot
I don’t think I dialed in the organic fertilizer until late in the season
This Year’s Garden
This year, we have 2 major changes to the garden:
We have six new 4’ x ‘8 raised beds in another part of our property, thanks to our exceedingly sweet neighbors. These beds will not be behind fencing, so we have decided to try a flower cutting garden.
We plan to utilize the same twelve edible beds – in line with our rotation strategy – but this time simplify the number and variety of crops we plan to grow. Our guiding principle is to grow things that we really love, and know will be more delicious than what we can get at the local supermarket.
With that, here are our lists for the coming season, ordered as always from Territorial Seed Company.
1/2 Full Farm 