Garden Layout

Am so excited to finally have all my seeds and starter plants in the ground! This will be the fourth year I have planted a garden - the first year was overtaken by weeds, nothing came up the second year and last year was good but there were some spacing issues. This year should be prolific thanks to the class I took from the ISU extension office on veggie gardening. At least I hope. Am planning to put out a farm stand at the end of the drive so people can stop and get fresh veggies on the way home from work so the garden is much larger than the years prior. Also we will be getting a deep freeze so I won't have to worry about all the freezer space being overtaken by sauces. We made it through January on the pasta sauce, salsa and stewed tomatoes I made and froze last fall and would like to go all the way into the next growing season. Honestly, once you make your own fresh sauces, the store bought ones will never taste as good.

Above is my illustration of all the good things to come in our garden. The garden plot is drawn to size (14 foot x 36 foot) but don't use the spacing between the plants. Radishes for instance only need 6" between the rows but the sweet corn needs nearly 3 feet. What looks like fence will actually be trellis netting for the green beans and cucs to grow upward. Tomatoes and peppers of course need to be caged in order to support the heavy limbs of the plant. I will also be caging my herbs just because the basil got so bushy last year.

I hope this inspires you to start your own garden, whether large, small or potted. Its easy to just start small, so that it doesn't become a chore, and is so rewarding to eat what you have grown.