Here’s an update on our first season garden at our new digs. We enjoy and appreciate comments (including constructive criticism) so don’t hold back on your impressions 🙂
But first, a bird’s eye view of the garden with our Plangarden layout. Click on the image to get the larger size:
Starting from the top and moving somewhat left-to-right, here are our garden pics starting with our “Tower of Potatoes”:
Next is the red Kennebec potato and Yin-Yang shelling bean “boxless” plot. A couple of *huge* rocks stuck out of the ground and were removed, leaving large divets. We thought why not fill it with soil and just make a “normal” bed? The potatoes are doing well but we had problems with this plot for the beans. Roy suspects that root-knot nematodes affected bean germination:
Our melon and watermelon patch is going nuts! Good thing we provided lots of “crawl area” for the vines in between boxes (~4-5ft). The “Far North” melon (~65 days) already has fruit the size of a baby’s head. The “Golden Midget” (~70 days) watermelon has some fruit about the size of small apples. This 3-pounder’s rind is supposed to turn golden yellow when ready to harvest – can’t get easier than that! As for the “Sugar Lee”, we have had lots of trouble germinating this baby which is supposed to produce 15-18 pounders. Only one plant is growing vigorously, albeit slowly. But if it succeeds, we may be harvesting watermelons through October!
The Yin-Yang shelling beans grown in this box are thriving; so are the cukes “Dragon’s Egg” (technically a melon) and “Straight Eight”.
Royal Burgundy beans in the neighboring box are also doing well though surprisingly not as prolific as I had expected (we’ve only had 1 meal and it’s mid-July!). Suspect a small varmit has been visiting. Roy’s looking to see if the Butternut squash have developed fruit (not yet).
We love it when a stray seed or two goes from soil to compost and back to new soil. These two beautiful purple Amaranth plants are “squatting” in between the bell peppers. We didn’t have the heart to remove them, and the peppers don’t seem to mind it (yet). We will probably harvest the Amaranth leaves for salad and not let them get too large. In the rear of the box are a gorgeous sweet Armenian cucumber (“Metki White Serpent”) and two prolific straightneck yellow summer squash plants.
We think our tomato plants are probably the most spoiled on the planet. Some would probably have abandoned them long ago, but not us. Well, not Roy. I nearly gave up, but acquiesced to Roy’s insistence on buying the black shade cloth that blocks 60% of the sun (~$50) and a misting system (~$25) to cool down the tomatoes in the middle of the day. Since the temps started climbing in the upper 90’s to 100’s in mid-June, these babies have been suffering from blossom drop. I also used old muslin fabric to protect the western side. We had our first attack of tobacco hornworms, but now have them under control, thanks to our chickens 🙂
Our last veggie box houses the corn. We sowed two different varieties with different days-to-harvest times about a week apart to further stagger the harvest. We also sowed climbing beans about 2 weeks after planting the corn so that the stalks would be larger than the bean plant. This looks successful so far.
Our first attempt at upside-down tomato plants have not been successful, probably because of the high temps that have overheated the plastic paint bucket containers. The “Celebrity” tomato plant has died, but “Early Girl” is still hanging in there, and produced two ripe (albeit small) fruit. The cloth you see is what I used to cover the plants to protect them from too much sun:
Finally, here’s the big picture showing our recently-built (final) chicken coop on the left (click on the image for larger pic). We’re still adding more plants, sorely needing ornamentals, but we have had to prioritize. Hopefully next year, we’ll have more grapevines, landscaped paths around the fence, more flowers and attractive shrubs.
Quick flashback to May 1st, just 2 1/2 months ago:

Construction of veg garden was a Herculean effort, thanks to abundant rocks, most of which had long been cleared out of this photo
And here it is the morning of April 1st, just 3 1/2 months ago, with snow-covered Mt. St. Helena in the background. It looks idyllic here (gee why did you ruin your view?), but the shrubs you see are a fire hazard (chamise or “greasewood”), and the overgrown former lawn was teeming with yellow star thistle!
Beautiful! Just beautiful. I’m incredibly jealous! You’ve done such a great job.
Great pictures. You have put a lot of time into your garden. Enjoy the bounty!
Great job! I am so jealous of all those melons and the health of your potato plants! Congratulations on such a great job!
Hi Garrett – Thanks 🙂 Your pomegranate looks awesome, too. I heard they grow well here, and since Roy loves them, I think we’ll try to grow them next year. Do you live in a hot, arid area, too?
Hi Deanne – Yes, and we’ve got sore elbows, knees, a sprained ankle (Roy tripped over the garden hose). Oh, right, I’m not supposed to say those things. Gardening is EASY and FUN! Thanks 🙂
Thanks, Michelle. We’ve been lucky w/ the spuds so far; only a few hornworms, and no beetles found to date. Hey, we’ve tried melons and >>failed<< miserably as it was in a cool, humid climate, so now it's PAYBACK!
We’re in Redwood City, so it often *feels* arid, but alas… 😉
Also, I mean to ask about how you went about clearing that space! I’m going to have to clear out a much smaller area (20×20 or so) and it has some of the same thistle as well as all sorts of other pesky weeds that defy “pulling.”
Details, please?
Hi Garrett – Well, we have the luxury and the burden of having more acreage that allowed our friendly neighbor to come in with his backhoe: https://plangarden.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=1285 to remove chamise (a fast-growing, fire hazard shrub with fat branches – not exactly “pullable” by a normal human)
But in other areas, we try to get the weeds when they’re still manageable. Our tool of preference is the pick axe, thanks to the lovely clay soil and gazillion rocks. But be careful not to overdo it, as I have given myself a very nasty “tennis elbow” from frenzied rock diggin/weed pullin’.
Advice is to attack a small patch at a time, maybe just a 5×5 area, then see how you feel. I highly recommend those garden gloves that have a neoprene-type grip that’s impermeable to thistle, but it’s really best to use a rake or something to grab the stuff without injuring your body!
Also – if the ground is way too hard in RWC as it is over here (it’s like concrete in the summer), then it’s best to just use a weed whacker to manage the weeds, and then wait till the fall/winter rains to soften the soil so that it’s tillable/workable. We occasionally use Roundup, but really prefer muscling dem weeds out of the ground in the winter 🙂
Good luck! A 20×20 area is quite significant – you’ll be growing lots of good veggies, and I bet your tomatoes rock!
What did you add to your dirt? We live in Hidden Valley and have tilled a patch about 30 by 20. We put a truckload of compost and will get a truckload of manure from the parents ranch. We are doing one big raised bed. We used the rocks we dug up to build the wall. I have a feeling the dirt has too much clay. My hubby thinks the clay is fine to grow plants. What is your experience?
Your garden is awesome!
Michelle
We added lots of compost available from local providers.
My #1 suggestion is to have your soil tested. It is worth the $30-$50 that it will cost you. Soil varies a lot around Lake County, so your may be very different than mine. I found the PH of the native soil was ok (6.8), but the compost I got locally (because I couldn’t compost enough for my garden fast enough) had a VERY high PH and my garden has suffered while I procrastinated in getting the time to test.
The clay can be fixed by adding compost. (Compost helps ALL soil get better.) This improve the aeration and nutrients. If your soil is redish, then you probably have tons of iron. Nitrogen and Calcium might be low. But without testing, you don’t know what to add to your soil to get the best veggies out of it.