Planning & Planting my Vegetable Garden

Planned my summer veggie garden today!  Also,I planted the first bed and will do the second later today. :D

I'm almost finished with planting this summer's garden!  I made a little watercolor map of where I'd like to plant everything.  I've got a total of 6 garden beds in various locations around the house.  

This year we'll have strawberries, asparagus, onions, garlic, beefsteak tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, red peppers, jalapeno peppers, zucchini  cucumbers, radishes, beets, swiss chard, baby romaine, raspberries  eggplant, acorn squash, green beans, basil, thai basil, mint, oregano, thyme, sage, and hopefully cherries!  

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I also built a 5x10' raised bed garden this year to keep out the roving herds of rabbits that reside in our yard.  I plan to add two more 4x4' beds next to this one, but I think I'll wait until the fall to do that. :)

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The perennial herbs I planted a few years ago are already up and doing great - clockwise from the top: sage, mint, oregano, and chives.  These are growing along the south side of our house, and they do great there despite the fact that they are a little bit shaded.  Plus, they look lovely once they start to grow and fill out. 

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The onions just started to pop out of the ground today.  I can't wait!  For some reason it is impossible to find a fresh onion anywhere in South Dakota.  Seriously, all of the ones at the grocery store look diseased!  I'm going to eat so many onions this summer.

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The swiss chard also popped up this morning.  I can't wait!  I love chard - it produces all summer, and around here the leaves get huge!   

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And there are a few pretty flowers starting to pop up all around the house. 

Happy gardening!



5 comments:

  1. I swear the quality of onions from the store have gone done. I've tried storing them in multiple places in my house and they rot within a month! Frustrating. I love seeing your gardening photos! I'm trying to get two new beds in this year. Did you just dig all of yours manually or did you have any special tools?

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  2. I know - ours here are even rotting on the store shelves! Bleh! I planted all red onions because those are my absolute favorite. For this bed I just flipped the sod over, laid down newsprint, and then added about 3-4" of compost soil that I had dug out from a bed a few years back (it was in a pile in the yard). For the ones I'll be building in the fall, I'm going to try doing a 'lasagna garden' where you pile up layers of lawn waste, soil, leaves, compost, and grass clippings over the winter to break down into soil. This way I won't have to dig as much! :)

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  3. I did one lasagna bed last fall. I haven't dug into it yet.

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  4. We just planted our garden this last weekend. When I lived in rentals I dreamed of having my very own garden. Well, when we were in our last rental I had a large patio and bought pots for a container garden. Now that we are home owners and I have my own garden, I kind of miss the little container garden. Each plant was just a step outside the door, so I feel like I connected with those plants so much more. So, in addition to my large garden I also just planted some things in containers for my own patio.
    Also, your chives remind me that I bought seeds for chives myself and need to plant those still. I had to have them because my grandma had them growing right outside her side door and when we'd go over she'd always send me out with some scissors to cut some chives for dinner preparation.

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  5. Our chives are right outside our back door too - I love having quick access to herbs. :D

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