Garden Sizes?

I've decided that I'm going to till up more of my yard, for a bigger garden. Currently I have about 2200 square feet (30 x 75) and I don't really have room to grow the things I want to grow without a lot of crowding. Corn and melons are two of the ones that I haven't really been able to grow.

What size gardens do those of you that grow in-ground have? I know that the market growers we have on Dave's have much more area, but what about other, household, gardens?

David

Mine's about 2100 sq ft (35 x 60) - I've never actually measured it!

I have ten raised beds 24' x 3' for annual vegetables
One 24' x 4' for asparagus
One row that is roughly 60' x 4'
One small bed 4' x 4'
Two pear trees in 25 gal pots
One persimmon tree in 25 gal pot
One fig tree in 25 gal pot
4 blueberry bushes in an area roughly 6' x 4'

At the other end of our property:

There is area too shady to grow anything but bamboo - which we are trying to eradicate!
Plus a crescent shaped bed for flowers - roughly 12' x 8'
A small rock garden filled with ferns.
Several 10 gallon pots with Knock Out Roses
There is also a huge oak tree beneath is growing irises and daffodils

Photo taken last July

I envy all of you who have big gardens. Mine is 3' x about 60', along the cedar fence. I have to do everything I can to make the most of it. I go vertical with all that will. I am even planting a 3' dwarf corn to try-the taller ones get blown down by our constant winds.

I have a 5' x 15' raised bed on the west side of my patio,with a 1' strip of raised bed on the south side of the patio, two 6' x 10' beds on the south side of my patio, and through the community gardens a 10' x 20' bed between home and work. I have a small yard, and too much is shaded by the neighbors' trees, so the community garden is a blessing.

My garden is about 60' x 60', with an extra 20' of width tacked on for a small orchard of dwarf fruit trees. There're a couple of brick paths leading to a greenhouse and some permanent beds with asparagus, raspberries and blackberries, but the rest is open to rotation; my rows are 30" wide with 18" woodchip paths between them. I'm thinking I need to cut back a little bit, because it's an awful lot to take care of. A couple of summers ago DH was under the weather so I found someone to help me get the garden ready and do the heavier work, and it made a huge difference. That person isn't available anymore and I can't find a substitute, so I'd like to make things a little easier on ourselves!

Honeybee, that is beautiful! Do you find the raised beds easier to maintain? All my space is in traditional row-garden style. Our house is built in "blackland prairie" so the soil type is fairly good for growing. The multi-acre lots in my development were farm fields (cotton, corn, beans) before the suburbs moved in. The soil is initially fairly dense, so needs extra organics.

Greenhouse Gal, that is a really nice layout! I'm sorry to hear that it may be getting to be too much to manage. That was my wife's first question, "Are you going to be able to handle that much more?" It is a good question, since I'm in kidney failure and I must do dialysis. Hopefully, once I get the ground broken up and most of the Bermuda grass removed there won't be that much more work. I plan to use mulches to help control the weeds. The biggest issues in the summer are bug control and water. I'll have to deal with those as I can.

David

David - so sorry to learn about your kidney failure. I applaud you for doing so much work in the garden with such hardship to cope with.

If I had "great soil" I would not bother with raised beds, but we have hard red "Carolina Clay" as it's called around here. Last summer I did put in two raised beds without boards, but the tomato cages were tipping sideways by fall. I garden on a slope! I am endeavoring to make each bed as level as possible by putting 6" wide boards down one side and 10" wide boards down the other.

greenhouse_gal - is your "real" garden as neat as your layout? My beds are never straight, even the new ones have a curve in them.

Photo is same view as the one above, but taken January 10th 2011 - where, o where is Spring?

Good to hear that you're still raring to go with the kidney problems, Dave! That's the spirit! But mulching is a lot of work, even though we have lots of salt hay to do the job with, and when we are skimpy or behind in the mulching there's a lot of weeding that has to happen. Last summer, and most summers, it gets so hot in late July and August that it's really hard to make ourselves go out in the garden to do the required picking and maintenance. We can spend a couple of hours out there early in the morning, before breakfast, but that's about it.

Honeybee, the rows are laid out between paths of woodchips over landscaping cloth; we refurbish those every spring. So yes, the rows are pretty neat-looking, but what grows inside can get a bit out of hand at times. Still, it's an attractive garden; this was last June:

Your vegetable garden looks like is coming out of a magazine. Congratulations
Keep posting pictures

Sometimes it really looks gorgeous. A couple of years ago when I had that help, friends would bring their houseguests over to see it. The mixture of a variety of shapes and textures in the veggies plus flowers at the beginnings of rows and planted throughout makes it really pretty. So it's very satisfying when it comes together like that. Here's another photo; this is from a couple of years ago:

Your garden is very beautiful, greenhouse gal. It must be soul-satisfying. I hope you can get some help with it. I know what it's like when you have a big garden but don't feel up to dealing with it.

My garden is composed of a bunch of separate plots:
*"Wayback" - 9 x 15ft, sunny spot at the end of the yard. Squashes, cukes, and dill.
*"Wayback Woodland" - 30 x 15 - just developing this one; it's mostly shade and bordered by trees but has great dirt. Will be elderberries, strawberries, belladonna, maybe some native berries.
*Artemisia patch - 5 x 25, mostly all planted with Mediterranean type herbs--various wormwoods, yarrows, lavenders, mugworts. I used to have tomatoes there, but now they grow in pots on the carport.
*Shade patch - 8 x 77, will be all leafy and root veggies this year.
*Patio patch - 20 x 20. main garden area, about 1/2 planted in perennial herbs and some strawberries right now. About one-third sun.
*Front yard patches - 5 plots 3 x 22. I did annuals last year--zinnias, nasturtiums, alyssum, calendula, and various types of nicotianas. This year, I'll be putting mostly perennial herbs and flowers in with interplanting of annuals for color this season.

I have a lot more square footage in garden than I thought: 2057 square feet. This year my garden is going to be a lot of work.

That's a huge garden, Paracelsus! I'll bet it looks beautiful when it's up and running, too. What do you do with all of your produce - do you freeze, can, or dry, or a mixture? I know we've talked about canning jars in the past. Do you have any photos?

The main problem with my garden (I actually refer to it as a potager, since that's what I've been trying to achieve) is that once I got it looking as nice as those photos show it to be, it's very hard to accept less. But without help it's an awful lot for two people to manage, especially in the summer heat.

Such a beautiful garden, greenhouse-gal! It looks like level ground, which is a big help. There's no way I could put table and chairs out in mine without them tumbling over!

Oh yes, our part of NJ is very flat! Although we do have a bank around our house so our cellar doesn't have to go too far into the ground, and there's a bank down to the river where my poor pup lost her beloved Chuckit ball yesterday!

greenhouse gal, I do preserve stuff and had a pic up in a canning thread a little while ago. Here it is:

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/fp.php?pid=8250185

But a lot of my plants have been herbs. I dry them and keep them in jars. I also grow some plants to collect seeds from. I hope I'll have a lot more stuff to freeze this year.

There is nothing more beautiful than shelves full of preserved homegrown food!

That is definitely a beautiful sight, Paracelsus. No, I hadn't seen that photo before!

Thanks! I started preserving because I wanted to try out old-fashioned recipes. Then I felt so good seeing a few jars of jam in there that I started doing it more seriously and turned out to love all kinds of pickles. It does indeed feel good to see a bunch of preserved stuff on the shelf.

i now garden in containers on my deck. i place my 10 galon buckets on top of a 4 x 10 greenhouse bench and thats the extent of it. i usedto have a regular 10 by 18 garden that i had to surround with a 7 ft fence to keep the deer out. this is much easier.

I love pickles but they do have a lot of salt. But you're right; there's nothing like seeing row upon row of beautiful home-canned foods.

I ordered some cornichon-type pickles because my DGD will go through half a jar if I let her; I have to figure out how to process them.

Have you ever checked into the Terre Vivante book?

Having a freezer full of home-grown vegetables is a wonderful sight, too :)

I'm starting to see some space in my freezer. We eat something out of there every day!

My freezer is developing some room, too. DH has been trying for deer but when he's there in his stand, they're not....That would take up some of that space!

Maybe it's so cold in NJ you could do what the pioneers did - dig a big hole and put in the deer?

It's not that cold here usually! Last night it went down to 9, but usually it's in the 20's at night in the winter, and often we get days in the 40's. The weather gets temporarily warm enough in almost every month to have mosquitoes come out. And bite....

greenhouse_gal, if you make your own pickles, you don't have to add any salt. These are the kind that start with vinegar and they are the ones I have gotten to love. I make them with wine vinegar and then process them in a boiling water bath. I don't add any salt to mine because it raises my blood pressure & I've gotten used to not having it.

Honeybee, you are right about a freezer full of food being a wonderful sight too. I hope I will be seeing that sight at the end of this season.

Hopefully I'll be seeing jars on the shelf and containers in the freezer, too.

I decided to just about double the space I'll be growing. There will be a lot of work, since the new section is about 35 x 75--but I'll be able to plant more with less crowding. It's already plowed and disked, now I just have to till and rake out all the bermuda grass!

I'm ordering an Earthway seeder, for the corn and beans, since I hope to grow more of those and planting by hand kills my back. That should help reduce the work a little. I'll figure out the other stuff as I go along.

"Earthway seeder...." "... for the corn and beans, since I hope to grow more of those and planting by hand kills my back. That should help reduce the work a little..."

A little!? That seeder will reduce the work a LOT, David. And reduce sowing time, too. You'll be able to plant a 100 ft row (or more) just as fast as you can walk. A done deal, furrowed, sowed, covered and tamped. It'll be one of the best investments you could make in your garden. Mine is nearly 20 years old now and still going strong; I wouldn't dare part with it.

Shoe

dreaves - having battled Burmuda grass myself, I can tell you: be sure to get every last piece of root that has a joint in it, otherwise it'll grow right back!

Shoe, I hope the seeder is still built with the same quality--that it will last 20 years. The current model isn't too expensive, so I wonder a little about the durability. Hopefully it will be as useful and last as well as yours has lasted.

Honeybee--this Bermuda grass is really something! I have to till around the edges of the current plot several times a year to keep the grass from working in from the edges. I'll be using corn gluten, newspaper, and straw mulch to try to keep the weeds and grass down in the new section.

David R

David, I've known Burmuda grass to grow through a nine-inch clay berm! It has also grown through several thicknesses of newspaper and cardboard.

I tried covering one area with a piece of old carpet - it grew through that!

Our final recourse was to dig out every little piece by hand!

My hubby wanted to put it in the compost, but I said "No way!" So he put it in a separate container thinking it would break down. Not only did it not break down, it actually continued to grow in the dark in a covered container.

I hauled most of the grass to my neighbor's yard because they couldn't get grass to grow there. The rest went to the landfill, where it's probably trying to cover the planet!

P.S. We are starting a battle with bamboo this summer - by the time we are done with that, I'll probably wish we only had Burmuda grass!

David, I thought my seeder was kind of wimpy years ago, made of plastic and aluminum frame, but it sure has held up well, still using the original seed plates, too. I'm sure yours will last many years.

Bermuda grass is a pain here, coming in thru some leaves the city would bring me each fall. I just have to keep pulling it out in certain areas and am glad it is not all over the garden.

I used corn gluten meal five or more years ago. It seemed to help BUT because I do pretty intense successive cropping I discovered it is not a good idea to use it in one area, where tomatoes/peppers/etc were set out if that is an area where fall seeded crops will be going. I followed tomatoes that year with a huge greens patch and the corn gluten meal (five months later) inhibited my greens seeds from growing (turnip, kale, rapeseed, etc). Ya'll should keep that in mind when you use it in your veggie garden.

Shoe

Don't mean to hijack, but, since ya'll are talking grass, can ya'll tell me the best way to remove the clover that it taking over my St. Augustine grass? I read online about corn meal gluten, vinegar, and Weed B Gone in a sprayer bottle (applied at least 2-3 treatments, and designed not to hurt my grass).

dreaves, Congrats on starting a new garden.

I just started my new garden here in Texas about three years ago and have been having many new adventures getting used to the new predators, pests, and new climate. I don't really have things plotted out yet, but have two beds pretty well set up for this coming season. They are 4' by about 100' with a 5' aisle between so that the mower can fit through easily. I'm setting all of this up in a former Bahia field, so setting up the beds has been quite a challenge. And that is also why I left the aisle as grass, less work right now. One thing I learned here on Dave's is that implementing the lasagne method is really helping for me as the initial set up is far less back breaking work for me. I do roto-till the beds before I set up the lasagne beds.

But before I set up any beds or even picked out what I would grow I installed purple martin house and blue bird houses. I noticed that greenhouse_gal has one (or mayb more) and that would be my one recomendation to any new Texas gardener from a semi-newbie, transplanted Texas gardener. The mosquitos are what drove me back into the house my very first season of gardening. It was aweful! I had already put up bluebird houses, but I got the martin house up too late for the scouts to find it that first year. Once I got the martins and the tree/house swallows extablished I now have very few noticable mosquitos. It is sooooooo nice to work out in the yard and garden without having to use any sprays or whatever to deter mosquitos! And having the birds around is just so pleasant. Just a thought...

Greenhouse_gal and Honeybee, I dream of one day having a garden settle in to be as lovely are yours. That freezer full of food is what we are aiming for.

paracelsus, are your saltless pickles sweet pickles? I love pickles, but not sweet pickles. And DH is supposed to cut down on the salt big time!

And finally....You go David! I believe that being outside and working in any sized garden is good for the soul!

Terri

This message was edited Jan 25, 2011 10:40 AM

This is the new section...as you can see, there is quite a bit of grass to deal with. I'm hoping for some rain in the next few days to settle the soil, then I'll be able to rake more easily. This is after plowing with a moldboard, then multiple passes with a disk harrow. It still needs more work with the tiller, to get the soil into a decent seed bed.

Purple martins don't do nearly the job on mosquitoes that they're supposed to. I find that other swallows seem to be better at that. Purple martins also eat dragonflies, which are great for pest control in and of themselves.

And although we have purple martin houses we don't have purple martins. We have tried to attract them for as long as we've lived here, and have even had specialists come and review our setup; no one can figure out why they don't come. They do show up and twitter around, but they have never moved in...Tree swallows and other birds seem to like the houses, though. And we do have bluebirds.

I read that purple martins like to nest near open water. How true that is, I don't know.

Bats eat mosquitoes and moths.

David - that area is going to make a great garden. I wish you well with it :)

SUH-WEET, David!

terri_emery, about half my pickles are the sour type and half are the sweet type. I made a lot of dilly beans, giardiniera (mixed veggies Italian style), jardiniere (mixed veggies French style), pickled garlic, and stuff like that, just plain sour with some added stuff flavorings like like garlic, Aleppo pepper, dill seeds, that sort of thing. Then I also made sweet pickles of beets, pears, and plums, and then I guess in-between sweet and sour with various types of salsas. You don't have to use any salt because they aren't being brined or fermented. The pickling is all from the vinegar you start with. I like to use wine vinegar. The sweet pickles do have added sugar. I didn't think I would like sweet pickles, because I don't like bread and butter pickles, but I decided to try one pickled fruit, and then I was hooked.:)

Paracelsus, have you ever tried cornichons? You sound as though you're having a lot of fun with those pickles.

Honeybee, we're right by a river so that should attract them; I've also seen very healthy colonies where there's no water in sight.

We have bat houses, too, but I don't know if they're tenanted. They're up by the barn.

Our neighbor says that purple martins will also eat honey bees, and I've also read that purple martins don't eat nearly as many mosquitoes as promoted. Luckily our neighbors have a very active bat colony in their old barn every summer, and we have virtually no mosquito population, even in wet years. Bats are very entertaining, especially when the babies make their first flights. We often sit on the neighbor's porch on summer evenings and watch the bats fly out of the hayloft for their nightly hunts.