Photo of my garden

Here's an overview of my garden as of April 17th

Ooooh, how lovely!

I am still in the planting stage, need to go out and get to it right now. Thanks for sharing the picture, it will motivate me!

What a beautiful garden.!!

It looks as if it came from a magazine. My garden is functional, but not nearly as pretty.

This is one of my raised beds on April 11th. It had been warm so I was watering with a sprinkler hose turned upside down to keep the water withing the beds. Just FYI for folks who like to recycle.. The metal wire you see are the metal frames from those push in political signs that pop up every political year. They love to have help taking it all down each fall and they just throw them away. I use these metal frames to hold up everything from bird netting over fruit, to hold up hoses and to support the light weight fabric I use for frost and insect protection.

Another beautiful garden, and what a neat idea to use those wires. Did you call the politicians' offices and offer to help take them down, or what?

I actually work with one of the local parties during the election. The day after the election they are thrilled if folks are willing to pick up the small signs for them. Usually the local candidates are in charge and tend to take down the signs for the state and national elections. Just call any candidates campaign and "volunteer" to help take down signs. In Virginia primary elections and in some cities elections are going on in early May and the second Week of June.... you may have opportunities in your area...

Beautiful gardens. I need some of those sign frames. Thanks for the idea.

nini, those frames are a great idea, functional and a never ending supply. LOL Ric

nini - what a great recyling idea! Your plants look perfect - not a bug-bite in sight.

At the moment... only a few rampant slugs creeping in from the bottom to eat the Chinese cabbage... a little beer and they are history...

Lovely gardens!

I'd like to have some of those wire frames for my row covers. Good idea!

Our Veggie Garden had been let go for years it reverted to perennial weeds, wild raspberries and even a few junk tree saplings. We would clear a small area of the original Veggie Garden maybe plant a few tomatoes or just let pumpkins and gourds grow wild. Then several years ago I realized that if I didn't do something we would lose our Asparagus Bed. Since then we have cleaned out more of it every year and it has become more productive. Last fall we cleared the last of the overgrown area and now have our entire area to grow. One end and side are bordered by fence. We bordered the other side with a 4ft wide 46ft long flower bed. It was just put in at the end of last summer and many of the perennial plants are starting to come to life. At the other end we put in a row of variegated box woods. I want the Veggie Garden to be both productive and pretty. Ric does most of the Veggie Gardening and I plant the flowers and do a little weeding. Not the best pic and there isn't much to look at yet. HOLLY

We have a small chicken coop in the corner, the barrels are for Ric's potatoes. We have an Asparagus Bed, just had some tonight cut fresh from the garden and we have horseradish those are the only two perennial veggies other than the mints that are growing along one side near the flower bed. Ric has planted onions, radishes, peas, lettuce and spinach so far. Last year I planted ornamental peppers and marigolds in with some of the veggies and there are some iris growing near the mints. We will post more pictures as it progresses. Holly

Wow, that's lovely! I don't know why we feel like we have to grow vegetables in straight rows. I bet it's a lot more fun to do chores in a pretty space...

The pictures are all wonderful! Nice inspiration!

If I had a much smaller space to work with, I would definitely do more interplanting, companion planting, etc, leaning more toward a cottage garden look.

Our Veggie Garden is only about 40ft X 46ft. We only need to grow for ourselves and some extra for family and friends. I know some of you have serious Vegetable Gardens. Not sure I would call it pretty yet but I'm working on that. It's the part I like to do. LOL Holly

Holly, your garden is charming :)

I agree with realbirdlady regarding growing in rows. Mother Nature doesn't do it, so why do we? I think by next summer, I should be able to dispense with the raised beds and rows and go more for the "natural" look. I dream of having a garden like one I saw on TV - it was in France and was laid out in a wonderful haphazard way with just enough space to walk between the plants.

I also have this dream of growing only heirlooms, letting some go to seed, and eating whatever volunteers from year-to-year.

Honeybee isn't funny that we plan for being a lazy gardener. I say just let a few go to seed and see what happens next year. There are always volunteers coming up in my beds from the compost or previous year's crops. I always leave some to mature. They seem to be hardier and just as productive as the intentional plants. One year, I had a great crop of butternut squash from a plant that winded its way around my tomatoes.

I like the natural look, too. But somehow, I got 3/4 of the way through planting my spring veggies and realized that I had, in fact, planted rows. Not sure why, except that some of them are under row covers, so it makes that part of it easy.

Speaking of natural gardens, I'm going to see Felder Rushing speak http://www.felderrushing.net/ at our art museum on Thursday. Pretty excited about that.

I also naturally stick with the row method of garden of gardening, and with a market garden, that is the way to go. But I am making some changes in some larger flower beds that we have started putting in for personal enjoyment, adding a short tree stump for seating or a little bench, little pools of water and curving paths, garden art, etc. So much more fun and relaxing.

I hope everyone shares pictures of their gardens progress!

I believe there are a few market growers on DG that use wide rows/raised beds methods. If you start a thread they may have more information about what they do. I assume that it is the increased labor cost and inability to use heavy equipment that really inhibits the use in market gardens.

Dl, I do use wide row raised beds and that is the best way for function IMHO. If I were just gardening because I wanted to raise my own food and plant flowers, etc, I think I would much more enjoy a less formal or row garden.

We mix lengthwise and width-wise rows add a few 4ft squares and a few flowers and hopefully it will be a practical and pretty Veggie Garden. There is a width wise row of variegated box woods then spinach & lettuce rows, then a square of horseradish. Lengthwise along the fence peas then asparagus and later a row of tomatoes will be planted. With the Chickes at the bottom. I think there will be a square of peppers next to the horseradish at the end of the tomato row and I will put a few ornamental peppers on the corners with a few marigolds for extra color. You can see the potato tubs in the center at the bottom of the garden. In front of them is a square of cabbage with nasturtiums mixed in.

Here is the other side. First the width-wise rows of variegated box woods and spinach & lettuce then a square of different mints and a lengthwise row of iris with onions and radish in the lower part of the row. Then a row with a couple of day lilies with turnips & beets in the lower part of that row. Most of the Veggies aren't up yet so it is still looking pretty bare. Not entirely sure what else Ric will want to plant in the center area but I'm thinking about some squares zinnias mixed in that area. Oh almost forgot he is building an arbor that will have runner beans growing on it. It will be placed in the middle of the boxwood hedge at the Veggie Garden entrance. I'll post more pictures as the plants start to fill in and it looks like something more than mostly bare ground. LOL

lol - sit under the arbor, pick AND shell the beans without getting up...

Holly, I really do love your garden, especially the way you have incorporated flowers, veggies and herbs in the same general area.

I was talking to hubby today about having chickens, but I'm afraid they might get cold during the winter. Is your chicken house homemade? If so, could you give me some hints? Do you have to do something special during the winter to keep them warm?

Thank you all for the very nice comments.
Yes it is homemade. I only have 3 chickies more pets than anything else although they are laying hens and I do get eggs from them. It was built from recycled wood, it was a packing crate. The roof is on hinges and opens up so I can get in to clean it and collect the eggs. There is just one small door for them to go out into the pen. The pen is made from metal panels that we have had for years, you just ziptie them together and they will stand on their own. About 2/3rds of the pen is covered with some heavy plastic material left overs from some project of my son's. The 1/3rd that isn't covered folds back to access the pen. Last year we let the Chickies run loose and they did a very good job helping keep the plants weed free and a great job on the slugs. We will turn them loose in a few weeks, I want the new plants to get a little more growth before I turn them loose. They overwintered just fine without any special precautions. You need to keep them covered and dry. You don't want the coop too big it stays warmer when smaller. We covered part of the top to try and keep some of the pen dry and I used wood-chips in the chicken coop and straw bedding in the pen area. Trying to keep their feet off the wet and freezing ground. This year we had that really deep snow and the whole system worked very well. I piled up snow around the sides and that kept it from drifting in too much. They are pretty tame and follow us around the yard especially when we are digging and weeding just looking for what ever we turn up. LOL

Thanks for the info, Holly. My hubby collects other people's "left overs" from around the neighborhood, so maybe he can find what's needed to build us a small coop.

I was surprised when you said it was okay to let them roam around your vegetable garden, I thought chickens would eat everything.

A couple of birds would be good for us, even if it's only to eat the slugs! We don't eat a lot of eggs. We actually had four hens when we lived in South Florida, and shared eggs with the neighbors. Of course, it was warm all year round there, so I didn't worry about the birds getting cold.

Our chickens would ruin our garden. We used to put them in there in the winter to eat the bugs, but then I set up paths with landscape cloth between the rows, and we had to keep them out of there because they would have scratched everything up.

We have found that ducks love slugs, but our chickens don't. When we lived in Washington State we had a fenced run around our garden for the ducks, who did slug patrol very effectively.

We had a decrease in slugs last year that I attributed to the Chickies especially since they spent a good bit of time in the rock wall garden which is prime slug territory. I guess that could have been a coincidence. My son just picked up a couple of ducks they are so cute and will be coming along with the GS this week while his Mom has surgery. We had some minor damage especially to the moss beds they really tore those up and they liked to pull out my plant markers. Only damage to the Veggie Garden was a few tomatoes and we have plenty to spare. We are collectors, too. LOL

I just had a thought - our garden is loaded with earthworms - if they are tastier than slugs, I'm guessing the chicks would eat them first. I know our Florida chicks loved earthworms.

Might depend on the chickens or the variety of slugs - all I know is that the other day I threw my chickens some cutworms and a lone slug and the slug got off scot-free! It's roaming around the chickenyard humming to itself even now, for all I know. Our chickens love hornworms, too. It's extremely satisfying to see them gobble those pests up!

It's probably the slime that puts off the chickens!

Wasps will carry off small caterpillars - they feed them to their young.

Ducks and geese are supposed to love slugs and snails. They use to gobble them up at the university garden were I went to school. Chickens, other birds and beetles will eat slug and snail eggs.

dlbailey - do you know which birds like slug eggs? I would like to attact them to my garden. I really have a slug problem, probably because of all the leaves covering the pathways. Slugs love to hide under the leaves.

I have Towees, Thrashers and Mockingbirds - I know these three are meat eaters (as opposed to seed eaters)

Thanks

I believe raptors are the only true carnivorous birds. The birds you mention are omnivorous. They will eat insects, fruit and seeds. I am pretty sure they will eat slug/snail seeds if they have a chance. If you pull back mulch and debris and leave it exposed for a few days, birds coming to your yard for a snack may come by and eat the eggs. Slug/snail eggs are really easy to spot. They are about 1/8 - 1/6" wide, semi-transparent with a yellow, white or pink tint. I usually see lots of them when I first start working in my beds in the spring. At first I mistaked them for small beads. If the birds don't eat them, you can take care of them yourself.

Slug eggs pictured here. They are about the size of a pencil eraser. The photo is enlarged just to show how they are massed together.

Thanks, dlbailey, you describe things so well :) Thankfully, I'm not squeemish. I pinch and kill every slug/snail I see, but I know there are thousands more.

Pirl, thanks for the photo.

HollyAnnS and HoneybeeNC, such lovely veg gardens. I'm sooooo happy spring is finally here! Garden photos! Woohoo!

Here's mine, just getting started. The front is my six month old lasagna bed experiment. I though the garlic and the Egyptian walking onions were gonners due to the severe winter, but no. I did loose a few but the rest look fine. I need to replant some lettuce as I've eaten most of it. Tomatoes further on down. The peppers and eggplant will go in this weekend. There are actually three beds like this one. Also, please forgive the blue flowers/weeds comming up at the side of the bed. There were honey bees using those flowers when I was mowing and I just can't bear to mow down a honey bee diner. I have patches like that all over my lawn. DH says it looks like I've been mowing with a six pack!

I've seen some folks near my house have sweet corn comming up already! I'd better get cracking!

terri, Looks good I can't wait to see everyones pics when these veggies start to grow in. I like your blue flowers they look lovely growing along side your veggie garden. You are right the honey bees need all the help they can get.