I'm new here, and I'm new to vegetable gardening, But I LOVE it, and I can't wait for the summer. Here are my plans to turn my small backyard into a vegetable garden! My backyard is fenced in. Last season I put in 1 raised bed, and planted a late ( i had just moved in mid-summer), and soon found that groundhogs were eating my crops! so I fenced in the 1 raised bed and had SOME success with peas and tomatoes and herbs. this year I want to expand the vegetable garden as much as I can and grow all kinds of things. The pool one of these kiddy pools that one puts up and takes down every summer. ( it's for the kids ) I ordered some seeds: 1 'French Breakfast' - (Non-GMO) - Summer Radish 2 'Early Scarlet Globe' - (Non-GMO) - Summer Radish (Heirloom) 3 'Blue Lake Pole' (Non-GMO) Green Bean 4 Kentucky Wonder - (Non-GMO) - Yellow Wax - Pole Bean - 40 Grams 5 'Scarlet Runner' (Non-GMO) Pole Beans 6 'Royal Burgundy' (Non-GMO) Purple Bush Beans 7 'Green Sprouting' - (Non-GMO) Italian Broccoli - (Heirloom) 8 'Long Island Improved' (Non-GMO) Brussel Sprouts (Heirloom) 9 'Danvers Half-Long' - (Non-GMO) - Carrot Seeds - (Heirloom) 10 'Armenian' (Non-GMO) Cucumber (Heirloom) 11 'Ruby Red' (Non-GMO) Leaf Lettuce 12 'Grand Rapids' - (Non-GMO) - Lettuce Seeds 13 'Southport White Globe' (NON-GMO) White Bunching Onion - NEW! 14 'Bloomsdale Long Standing' (Non-GMO) Spinach 15 'Tiny Tim' (Non-GMO) Dwarf Cherry Tomato - (Heirloom) 16 'Bonny Best' - (Non-GMO) - Tomato Seeds 17 'Money Maker' (Non-GMO) Tomato 18 'Straight Eight' (Non-GMO) All Purpose Cucumber (Heirloom) 19 'Sugar Snap' (Non-GMO) Edible Pod Pea 20 'Oregon Sugar Pod II' (Non-GMO) Edible Pod Peas 21 'Forest Green' - (Non-GMO) - Parsley 22 'Garlic Chives' (Non-GMO) Herb 23 Thyme - (non-gmo) (Common Thyme) 24 'Italian Plain Leaved' - (Non-GMO) - Parsley - (Heirloom) 25 'Genesis' (Non-GMO) Cilantro 26 Oregano (non-gmo) (Greek Oregano) 27 Catnip - (New!) 28 'Anaheim' (Non-GMO) California Salsa Pepper 29 'Early Calwonder' (Non-GMO) Sweet Bell Pepper (Heirloom) 30 Cayenne Long Slim - (Non-GMO) - Pepper Seeds I plan to start some seedlings indoors and then move them into the greenhouse and then move them into the garden. I'm not sure if the 1 foot wide raised beds along the fence will work, and not sure what to plant in there yet. in fact, I need to sort out what's going to get planted where for everything. This is the first of many updates, I can't wait to show you guys how this plan pans out as I try to implement it.
Well your diagram says it all mate and nothing better than doing your own personal drawing and working from there ...then your heads not all over the show when facing starting to do it, some parts of our garden my hubby drawed first to make sure and when ordering slabs etc. I can just about see your list with spec's on but you've definitely got some seeding to do...nice one
Hi @adam.ca your plan looks great. I also have a greenhouse, two raised beds, boarders and lots of pots and tubs and take cuttings and grow some of my plants and veggies from seed. I’m from the UK. It will be great to see how your backyard develops. Do you have any pics of how it looks now?
Welcome Adam! It is great to see your gardening enthusiasm! You have come to the right place to share your plans. Looks like a beautiful plan Adam! I am envious! Questions for you: are you planning to do square food gardening in those 4X8 raised beds? If you haven't already done this, I recommend that you staple hardware cloth to the bottom of the raised beds before planting to deter voles, etc. How tall are these raised beds? If fairly tall, you will need to plan for adequate watering (especially if you will be out of town). Will you have adequate room between the 4X8 raised beds and the 1 foot raised bed so you can weed, harvest, water, turn around (!) etc? What will you have between the raised beds...ie the walkways? If grass, do you have room to get a mower in there? Beautiful plan. As I said, I am truly envious!
Wow,, Thats quite a list ! How deep are your beds ? Some of your seeds are almost duplicates ! Like the French Breakfast radish and Scarlet Globe are basically the same radish just different shapes ! The Kentucky Wonder green bean and the Blue Lake are almost the same bean ! I prefer the Blue Lake Bush but both are excellent and good producers ! Not sure about the harvest of the pole type ! I would keep anything that runs along the fence since you will need some support for them ! I tried the Armenian Cukes but they did not do well here in Texas ! I prefer the pickling type cucumbers since they are good canners or fresh eating ! How many of each type of plant are you going to grow ? Some will take more than others to even make a dent in the food bill !
Looks like you are going to have a great garden this summer! I like your list of seeds and glad to see they are all non gmo. Blue Lake beans, Royal burgundy beans, sugar snap peas, and Bloomsdale long standing spinach are 'must haves' for my garden each year.
Good looking plan you have. First thing I thought of was "why aren't there more pots to container garden peppers?" That's just me...
@Kazzawazza here are some pics There used to be an above ground pool in the backyard, the raised decking with the scraps of wood under it is what's left of that pool, I'm going take it apart and use the 4"x4" supports as the main support beams for the greenhouse. The part of the deck that i circled will be removed so the deck becomes a rectangle as shown in the plan in the first post. all I have right now is 1 raised bed with a makeshift chicken wire fence around it because groundhogs live under my shed. as you can see, I have a lot of work to do, to bring it where I want it to be, I'm going to have LOTS of fun this spring. lucky there isn't 1 tree in my backyard, the neighbors have lots of trees, but the section which will become the garden ( the pic above ) is in full sun pretty much all day.
yes, I'm learning my stuff from youtube's MI-gardener, and others, he does square foot gardening i'll be doing that also. the raised beds are not very tall. 6" with about 1" sunk into the ground. that's the size wood i had on hand for free, sooo that's what i'll be using. right... I want to leave just 1 foot of spacing in-between all the beds, might be a bit tight, but I very much want to maximize the growing space. but if you look at the plan I have an arch trellis that goes from one bed to another, I think I'll leave 3 feet of spacing there. Ya I was going to just leave the grass in there, at least at first, but your right I'd need to be able to get the mower in there! damn... sounds like i'll have to take out the grass or cover it with something and kill it. the beds are made from 1/2" X 6" wood, I remove the grass, dig a bit, put in the bed such that its ~1" sunk into the ground ( for added stability? ) and fill the bed with some mix of compost and cheep garden soil. ya, I purposely picked out similar vegetables, I want to plan a couple of each variety and see which ones do best, the fallow years I will only plant my favorites, and I'll favor the veg that appears to produce more. I hope to put a big dent in the food bill, and make the family eat more vegetables! truth be told, I wouldn't mind trying to grow some kind of crazy superhuman GMO vegetable, but all i see in that category are WEIRD types of vegetables, like this stupid thing: looks like garbage if you ask me. lol, I actually only included pots in the plans when I realized I'd have some extra spaces here and there to fill up, as I was drawing it out. your right more pots might be a good idea.
Full sun is just what peppers crave so your space is perfect. I am container gardening due to my wife's health and her physical limits. Bringing the garden up on the porch lets her stay involved in the process. Also can be great for trellised cucumbers and tomatoes. The possibilities are endless.
Well at least you have some good ground to work around and you are blessed to have no tree's there...wish I could say the same for here
@Brian1985 I'll say! I had to get a plot in our community garden because I gave yoo much shade at home.
