Planting more and more and more....

I just keep planting more and more seeds.  I am so excited to see how this journey goes.  On the one hand I am very hopeful and excited to see what will come off all my little gardens.  On the other hand I am trying to be realistic.  I have not had great gardening success in the past.  I have always had some gardening success on a small scale, but this year I want to really have a harvest.  A REAL harvest.  I am making little gardens all over the place.  I had a few tomato plants that I planted along a wall outside the back of the house and beside that is a small single row garden that will be only bell peppers (6 foot long*).  Not far from that one is a little garden that is partially shaded during a big part of the day that I planted some lettuces and such in... knowing that it is likely to get to hot, but using up some older seeds.  That garden is 4 foot by 10 foot and has two varities of leaf lettuce, spinach, radishes, carrots, and onions.  Near that garden is another that is a square garden (15 foot x 15 foot) that I planted 3 varieties of green beans and some yellow beans, 3 varieties of tomatoes.  Along my deck I have planted another little row of tomatoes about 8x8 foot.  Today I planted another garden that is about 15x15 foot that has butter beans, crowder peas, purple hull peas, snow peas, and four varieties of cucumbers.  In various containers around my deck I have planted some flowers for fun and some herbs and peppers.  I have also planted gourds at three of the fence posts of our dog yard so those can climb up the fence. 

Also, I plan to have some of my cucumbers trellis style just to see the difference in how well they produce.  It will be interesting to see if the ones on the ground or the ones that are on a trellis do better.  As for the construction of the trellis.... well, I am going to be frugal.  Basically, each "trellis" will really be two stacks with yarn woven back and forth.  I would really like to try raised bed gardening with boards around (or logs), but I can not pull that off at the moment.  That may be something we add in the future.  The lates thing I have heard about is "cardboard gardening" and I plan to do that some this year.  I will used cardboard for weed control this year, I think.  And it is a simple concept really.  You lay the cardboard over the weeds, spray well with water until saturated, and leave the cardboard there to smother out the weeds.  If you want to learn more just google it or look on youtube. 

My goal is to learn to use this little acre in the middle of town to grow some of our food.  In the coming week I hope to get another garden going that will have a variety of types of vine growing plants like squash, zucchini, pumpkin, watermelon.  I also want to plant marigolds around my tomato plants to help keep the bugs away.  I bought some other flower like zinnias hoping that they also deter bugs, but I am not sure if they do.  I will try to add a post later that shows some pictures, but honestly it is not much to see until the growth take off other than a lot of dirt with gras around it.  ;)

*Sizes are approximate and I have not measured