I’m going to share my 2013 vegetable garden in two parts this week. Today I’ll show you 3 of the 8 raised beds and what I have planted along the back fence line. I think it’ll be easier to see everything if I do two posts otherwise it’ll be one really, really long post!
My 2013 Vegetable Garden
This is raised bed #1 below. I generally try to companion plant my raised beds and I plant intensively and always include some flowers to aid pollination. If you don’t know what companion planting is, I wrote an intro to companion planting here.
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This bed has sweet potatoes (which I’ve never grown before) & eggplant. There’s borage planted for pollination which hasn’t flowered yet as well as a few nasturtiums and marigolds for pest control (I don’t think they really work but I always add them – can’t hurt and they’re a bright spot in the garden when they get larger).
As you can see, I decided to make some paint stick plant markers!
It was one of the plant marker ideas I featured in my 11 Creative Plant Marker Ideas post . They’re really easy to make but I don’t think they’ll last more than one season here in Georgia (but they’re free so I don’t feel too bad)!
Raised Bed #2
This is the first bed I planted at the beginning of the summer. It has lemon cucumber, tomatoes, peppers, swisschard, a few carrots, lettuce (testing growing lettuce inbetween tall veggies to see if I can keep them cool enough not to bolt) borage, marigolds.
I’m training the lemon cucumber up this arbor that I have inbetween two beds.
Next to the lemon cucumbers is a Mortgage Lifter tomato and two peppers, swiss chard and marigolds.
In the same bed are more tomatoes and peppers, a few carrots, borage, marigolds and red leaf lettuce.
Raised Bed #3
This bed has cherry tomatoes , basil, nasturtiums and lettuce right now. But my lettuce is bolting so I’m going to be pulling it out and planting green beans.
Tired yet? 🙂 Along the back fence wall I have flowers, 1 of 2 grapes,
blackberries (creeping in from the other side of the fence),
Nanking Cherries (bush cherry which can be grown as an ornamental and the fruit is edible),
a rhubarb I planted this year that I’m trying to baby (I’ve never been able to grow it for more than one year). I planted it close to the Nanking Cherries so that it would get some protection from the sun.
and on the other side of the picket fence I have more blueberries and these huge elderberries! Elderberry bushes are beautiful as an ornamental in your yard but the flowers and fruit are edible as well (the berries need to be cooked).
You can make Elderberry wine, syrup, cordials, deep fried elderberry flowers, it even has medicinal uses – you can do a ton of things with Elderberries!
I think it’s so important to add shrubs to your landscape that do more than just look beautiful!
Well that’s some of my vegetable garden, I’ll show the rest on Friday and in a few weeks I’l update you about the little orchard I planted last year.
I think I need a few chickens don’t you? 😉
See the video tour of my vegetable garden here
Love seeing a tour of your garden Manuela! I do miss my large garden from my other house, but have plans for some raised beds soon! Your garden is doing wonderful!
It all looks so pretty and is growing great. Loved seeing your garden can’t wait to see the rest.
I’ve always loved your raised beds Manuela. Our garden is doing great too. Awesome, thank you.
You really have a nice garden and such a wide variety – lots of hard work, and good eating in the future.
Hope you are staying cool and having a great week.
Beautiful garden! I love how you have an Elderberry bush. I am looking into getting one of those.
How do you know when you’ve planted too much in one bed? I have a habit of thinking the plants will grow huge but I end up wasting space!
Love your posts Manuela!
Thank you Marilla!
Mmmm….good question. I guess I know how big most plants get and I’ve been doing it for years. I don’t have a set method. I’ve learned what works for me by trial and error. The Square Foot Gardening book has a good guide for how much space to give a plant – I don’t know if you’ve looked at that already. I also am not afraid to dig something up and move it if it looks like it’s not doing well.
You have such a lovely garden and great variety! Have you ever tried the nasturtium leaves and flowers in salad? They add some beautiful color and I think they taste great. When I was little we lived next to a lake and elderberries grew in the swampy area next to it. We used to make elderberry pie, they need lots of sugar, but they are pretty darn good:>)
Yep, that why I planted a whole bunch with the lettuce since I was planning on using them in salds. But my lettuce is already bolting!
Indeed you do need some chickens! But make sure you fence them off from your plants, because they will leave a lunar landscape if you aren’t careful.
Your garden looks great! We have been in the mid 90’s here for 2 days, 90’s for the foreseeable future, too, so I have had to put the shade cloth up over my garden, which diminishes the cute factor, but ultimately helps with production. Too hot here for rhubarb for sure! I love my elderberries, which are in full glorious bloom and setting berries. My borage is blooming and I’ve been using the blossoms in salads. Can’t wait to read your Part II.
Yep, I’m thinking of covering my blackberries – last year they just burned up from the heat!
I love having chickens, but, we had to fence in over an acre of property for our garden. Chickens destroyed a lot of my gardens last year and I wasn’t going to do all the work just to have them ruin it all again this year. So, we bought 5′ welded wire fencing, fenced in about 200 feet and topped off the 200′ existing fence that went half way around, with 2′ poultry fencing just to make sure. Someone left the gate open one time for a few minutes and that was all it took. The chickens tore out a bunch of tomato plants, half of my potatoes that I just planted. So yeh, definately keep your not yet aquired chickens away from your really nice garden unless you want to replace all of the plants and the soil too! For me, that is just waaayyy to much work. I am limited by RA and besides, the chickens can have the remaining 10 acres to wander and scratch!
And yet there’s a whole book about how to keep chickens in your garden? 🙂 IF I got chickens I would be doing a chicken tractor so I could move them around.
I think a lot of people have a romanticized notion of keeping chickens. Like it’s the cool hip thing to do. But chickens need to be cared for and there’s an initial expense. So, although I’d love to be able to have fresh eggs and take pretty chicken photos for my blog. I also don’t know if I want to have to be responsible for more living things 🙂 Plus it would be hard to go anywhere since none of my neighbors have chickens. They’re fine with dog sitting – I don’t know if they’d be interested in chicken sitting!
Yes, I don’t get the book thing. I have thought about Guinea Hens, they supposedly don’t scratch like chickens do. They are supposed to “pick” the bugs right off your plants. But they wander all over the place and are pretty expensive. Maybe someday we will get a couple. Our neighbors have peacocks that practically live at our house and those are really destructive! Our cars all have scratches from them roosting on them. Chickens actually, if allowed to “free range” like ours do, don’t really require alot of attention. You are correct about chicken sitters, we don’t roam too far from home. Our neighbors that do not have peacocks, like our chickens and their garden is also fenced against the rabbits. We tried the chicken tractor, but to us it was more trouble to constantly keep moving it and I definately could not move it. I find that if I want to have nice flower gardens or just nice shrubs, I put down mulch and then I put poultry wire on top. You can barely see it and everything stays in place. We really like our chickens and we sell the eggs. We don’t cull our girls, ever. They die a happy old age. Might not be the most economical, but we feel like they are our pets. Just like our three dogs and cat, Ozzie, Lucy, Oliver and Kitty. Part of our family.
Very impressive! You are going to have so much goodness coming from your backyard. I’m a little jealous but our yard is postage stamp size.
I’ve been trying to figure out where I could put an Elderberry around here! You are so right about how pretty and productive they are. I love my chickens! They run around the yard and are so friendly and curious, that if you’re doing yardwork, or just hanging outside, they are right there checking it out. They don’t stay underfoot for long though if there aren’t treats in it for them. The eggs are a lovely bonus.
Everything looks very healthy. Yes, I’ve often wondered when you were getting some little chookies.
Your raised beds look great…love your photos too!!
Your garden looks so pretty — very lush! Mine will be expiring soon. We will have tomatoes for awhile longer, but the squash is hanging on by a thread — they just can’t take the heat. Well, neither can I!
Manuela, Thank you for sharing us your 2013 veggie gardening..it’s all very neat:) Mine looks more like a jungle now:D All the best to your Rhubard plant…I also planted two from seeds this year, it grew, got stressed and bolted! I cut it right down and now it is doing well:) Can’t wait for your Friday post!
I’ll try that if my rhubarb bolts!
I love looking at vegetable gardens, so thank you for the tour. Your garden is pretty as well as useful, the best kind:)
Your garden looks so fresh and great! It must be nice going out to pick fresh vegetables. Love the paint stick idea. Truth be told I love paints sticks. When I get them from the paint store I hoard them!!
Cynthia
Your garden is such an inspiration! I love how you have made all of your beds so charming. We’re struggling with our first year soil, and our crazy weather, so I’ll be looking at yours this year as motivation for what I hope ours will become in the future. We have gotten a few tomatoes already, but with the 100 degree temps this week, ours might be done for now. Hoping to keep everything hanging on for this fall. Can’t wait to see the rest!
Your garden looks so much better than mine. It has been so hot here which is not the norm for June!
Your garden is looking beautiful! I planted mine late this year due to the cool and wet spring.
I am SO going to make a couple of those teacup feeders soon. Have the teacups-saucers, have the glue, need to get to Menard’s for the pipe and cap!
It was funny when Stephanie was here and I have her even saying she is “pulling a Manuela” by taking an item, painting it, and reusing it for something completely different. 😉
LOL! Really! That’s so sweet!
Your garden looks waaaay better than mine!! My plants still look like itty bitty babies. Do you fertilize?
hello manuela,
your garden looks wonderful.thanks for the wonderful inspiration!!!
i made elderflower vinegare, elderflower,likör and champagne.next week will i made syrup and jelly.
wish you a wonderful weekend,
regina
You grow veggies like I do – intense planting to keep out weeds and maximize space.
Rhubarb is a full sun plant and likes a good dressing of fertilizer in the spring. It sounds like you are trying to grow it in shade? Many a good rhubarb patch is still growing at abandoned farm houses in our country area. My best plant was a rescue from one such farm by a fellow gardener.
Not really in full shade – I’d say partial shade – filtered sun. A lot of plants that normally like full sun don’t like the hot Georgia full sun. It needs protection from the afternoon sun. As a matter of fact, I may have to put some shade cloth over my blackberries to keep them from burning up. Lilacs and rhubarb are really hard to grow here.
Your garden is beautiful – and so far ahead of ours. My sweetheart decided to put in the garden this year since he’s retired and has the time. He’s been so busy with things – and in demand since he’s retired – and our garden isn’t finished. We have a bumper crop of raspberries just beginning and our tomatoes will be the same in a few weeks. Thank you for sharing yours with us. I’ll off to watch the video.
~Adrienne~
Manuella, love your raised garden beds. Looks terrific! You’ll have some amazing vegetables. Love the paint stirrers as markers – terrific idea. I appreciate you sharing with Home and Garden Thursday,
Kathy