2013 Garden Plans

Well, it's May already! I had good intentions about writing regularly in this blog. But, as you can see from the last (and ONLY) blog post, intentions only go so far without actions.

But, I really do want to post about my garden, if nothing else. I may be the only person reading this blog, and it has been really helpful for me to look back on the past two years on my previous blog to see what and when I did things in the garden.

This is my third year gardening. I plan to fill up my two raised beds and expand my growing space by planting veg in my landscaping around the sides and back of the house.

This year, I am going to plant zucchini on the north side of the house. Not a great spot for sunlight, but in my experience, they have done really well regardless of where I plant them. It may be a total bust, but we'll see! The pumpkin patch from last year is along the south fence. Hubby built me two huge, sturdy vertical trellises that I plan to use to grow both sugar pumpkins and sugar baby watermelons. Another experiment! :)



We planted three raspberry bushes (bare root stock) along the south side of the house. I actually think those will do well there, since it has more sun. We'll see! If they do well, we have room for three more additional bushes. So far, they have not shown any signs of life...



The herbs will go in the same spot as last year. The chives and oregano are perennial and the cilantro usually reseeds itself each year. However, with last year's extreme heat and drought, the cilantro died off completely and I harvested the seeds to use for cooking. I planted some of the seeds I saved in the same spot and am hoping they will grow back this year.


Another big deal this year are the two columnar apple trees we planted . They are south of our raised beds and north of the deck in the middle of the year. They were bare rootstock, but already have lots of little green leafy buds sprouting up and down the sticks. I am so hopefully these work out!



The final newest growing area is the strawberry patch. I have cleared out some ground cover that was growing in our landscaping along the west side of the deck and plan to plant some strawberries there in a week or so. My concern with that location are the chipmunks. We may try to work out a wire box for protection? I don't know. I am not holding my breath that this works out long-term.


My hope is to add one or two more raised beds in the fall to plant for next year. If we could make one a dedicated strawberry patch with a custom cover to keep out birds and ground pests, that would be ideal. I just have to talk hubby into it!