FINALLY! Pictures of the garden

Mike showed me how to resize my pix this morning.  So we are proud to introduce you to our garden!


The garden is a 25' x 35' space in the NW corner of our back yard, facing east.  This is from the gate.  North is to the left.



This is from the NE corner.  My 6'x8' shed and our irrigation system.



This is from the NW corner.  Peaches, pears, apples in the background.





And from the SW corner - I have 35' of trellis space.



This is our irrigation system.  We have two 330-gallon containers we bought from a guy on Craigslist.  He even delivered them!  We have them hooked into 2 small gutters.  And we're very surprised at how quickly we've filled them up with just a couple of rain days.



Next year we will fill in the middle with more boxes.  Currently, we have 180 squares to plant in.  The middle boxes will be 4'x14 or 15'.  So that will double our planting area.  One bed will be perennials.

What a fabulous fabulous area!  Total sun!  How lucky are you!!!
Is anything planted yet?

CC

Nearly a blank canvas to work with!    

Let's see...6 TTs, 4 deep boxes,.....oh, this is difficult, kinda like picking out donuts at the bakery!

I'll pass along that some folks don't like beds in the lengths you suggested.  Walking around the bed doing routine garden work was very inconvenient after a while, and they wish they had made them 8 feet long

Very, Very Nice AtlantaMarie!!!! What a great spot you've got going. Love the irrigation set up, too. How do the hoses hook into the downspouts? I'd like to reroute some of the water from my gutters to use in the garden but hate to cut the downspouts and put in barrels.

What a nice set-up.  Love it. 

I personally prefer my beds only 3 ft wide.  The older one gets the harder to reach into the center.  I also agree on the length being shorter and more easily managed at 6 but not more than 8 feet long.

Awesome set up Marie! That is a lot of garden space to work with so you should have plentiful harvests to look forward to.

Love your garden area and the future plans. Y'all are doing an awesome job. I also like the pontoon and airstream  

My beds are 2x10 and I love the length of them sometimes I wish I had made them 12' long. The length isn't an issue to me. I do agree that width of beds are a definitely important and I like the narrower beds better (I really like my 2' width) but some of my future beds will be 3' wide. Since I'm so short I won't be doing any 4' but that is just a personal preference as to what works best for each individual  If you are comfortable working with 4x15's then I say go for it...less dead space more growing room.

Looks great!    I can't wait to see it once everything takes off!!

180 Squares is so awesome!   

Thanks everyone!  I appreciate it.  And, yes, I love the fact that it gets all sorts of morning sun.  With the direction it's facing, I'll probably add trellising to the south end next year.  It still won't be blocking sunlight into the plot.

We do have about 1/2 of it planted already.  Carrots in the left side of the top hat.  Potatoes will go in tomorrow or Friday.  Peas, beans, little carrots, watermelon, tomatoes, bottle gourds, luffa gourds, beets, cabbage, lettuce, onions, cantaloupe, spinach, corn, okra are all planted.  And Windmere was kind enough to send me some of his seeds, so I'm poking thru those now.  And I've got all sorts of stuff I haven't even opened yet!

Tagyourit - ME TOO!  I'll be taking/posting pix as it grows up.


In answer to questions/suggestions/ideas:


Boffer - thank you for that input.  That's something that Mike has brought up.  But like that donut store, only so much will fit in the box...  for me, it comes down to more plants or a place to walk.  Hmmmm....


Lyndeeloo - We did have to cut the downspouts for this.  It's a little thing we got from HD.  You sandwich this do-dad between the cuts.  It automatically diverts some of the water into your container.  I think they were about $10...?  I'll try to get you a better picture of it.


Quiltbea/TxGramma - Yeah, I find even 2' can be a challenge sometimes.  Thank goodness I have that fence to lean against.  Again, hmmmm....  Of course, it might help if I lost some weight, lol!


TxGramma - Pontoon's for sale...!  (But not the airstream!)

Great garden space, AM!

And I don't blame you about the Airstream!   

 

Love the nice large space you have for your garden!!

Sounds like you are going to get some nice goodies this year!!....that's whats great about planting SFG, you can have such a variety in the beds   I love my SFG beds for just that reason....

cant wait to see yours all in full bloom   

happy gardening
rose

AtlantaMarie wrote:Lyndeeloo - We did have to cut the downspouts for this.  It's a little thing we got from HD.  You sandwich this do-dad between the cuts.  It automatically diverts some of the water into your container.  I think they were about $10...?  I'll try to get you a better picture of it.

I would be interested in seeing this also.  I have a large white barrel but I have no idea what to do with it. I've watch numerous vids but it seems so complicated for this li'l pea brain.   

CC

AtlantaMarie wrote:...Boffer - thank you for that input.  That's something that Mike has brought up.  But like that donut store, only so much will fit in the box...  for me, it comes down to more plants or a place to walk.  Hmmmm....

Think TTs! You can plant underneath them.

Oh, yeah, Boffer!  Already planning on it.  I'm a packrat.  What's the first rule of being a packrat?

Learn how to pack!

As you saw, I've already got 35' of trellising.  Will add more either this fall or next spring.  Will also have the other boxes next spring.  Then the next step is add the TT's (at least on the front rows along the fence line.  I'd really like to go up a couple of boxes and have a 3-tier.  But we'll see...

BTW, Boffer - showed your avatar to some of Mike's students today.  They laughed and laughed.  

CC & Lyndeeloo - will get a pic tomorrow.

Sanderson/Cathy - haven't forgotten about the deck railing pix either.  Again, tomorrow...

awesome!! love all the trellis area! We have about 34 feet, and I'm running out of space    

very nice...I too was looking at the IBC totes on Craigslist...seems like
the 275 gal are going for around $100-$125.

Dang Marie! I almost wish I hadn't looked at the photos. I am now in complete garden envy mode. Love, love love the amount of trellis space you have. It seems like everything I want to grow needs a trellis.

I love the whole setup, length, width, irrigation.. all of it I would wear out a path walking the length of it and enjoy every minute of it. Very well done!

I'll be keeping my eye out for the deck railing pictures.

Cathy

Marie - losing some weight would help me out and something I really need to take care of this year. Wish I was closer I might just take the boat off your hands lol. And would definitely love to have the airstream...don't blame you for not wanting to get rid of it. 

Can't wait to see pics of your garden full of wonderful produce this year and all of the additions next spring.

AtlantaMarie, I just love looking at peoples' blank canvases and honestly, I'm not a bit jealous of all your space and available sunshine.  
I also love to see what they do with them later in the season so I also love before/after pics shown at the same time.
Looking at your space and reading of your future plans I think you must have about nine children or going to open a market garden.  

Yeah, SG, we're quickly running out of trellis room too.

Have to go out & uncover everything this morning.  Know we lost a few tomatoes, but not sure what else.  And I just left everything covered yesterday.  (They still got lots of air from the wind...)

Think I will be taking photos every week to see the progress.

Landarch/everyone interested in these water totes - if you get them, make sure you paint them black to prevent algae.

Kelejan - No, no kids!  Just me & DH Mike.  But the goal is to have 5 years of food put away for us, feed some of the neighbors, sell some at a couple of our local markets, and share some with the local food bank.

(If you can't tell, we're "preppers."  And if/when everything goes south, the food supply chain will go quickly.  That's why we're focusing on heirlooms.)

Gotta go mow the grass, uncover everything, scatter coffee grounds, spray my vinegar/salt killer on the fence line, take pix of windowbox railing setup & water diverter for Sanderson & Catbranch...  Good thing we don't have students in today!

More later!  (With pix!)   

Looks like you have a wonderful opportunity to have an outstanding garden. Good for you!

I just want to pass something along ... Last year I planted so many tomatoes that I have little room to grow tomatoes this year. That is, if I want to keep a proper rotation going. By next year I suppose I'll have to plant tomatoes entirely or nearly entirely in buckets because I'll have used up all my tomato rotation slots in two years. So I'm just recommending that you keep crop rotation in mind when filling up all those lovely trellises.

Looks great AtlantaMarie! So glad you finally got pictures working!

Marc Iverson wrote:Looks like you have a wonderful opportunity to have an outstanding garden.  Good for you!

I just want to pass something along ...  Last year I planted so many tomatoes that I have little room to grow tomatoes this year.  That is, if I want to keep a proper rotation going.  By next year I suppose I'll have to plant tomatoes entirely or nearly entirely in buckets because I'll have used up all my tomato rotation slots in two years.  So I'm just recommending that you keep crop rotation in mind when filling up all those lovely trellises.

Wouldn't it be great to have software that would allow you to specify the number of beds and squares per bed then specify what you wanted to grow and in what quantity.  The software would then consult a database (specific to your hardiness zone and geographic area, preferably) and return a planting plan and a rotation plan running, say, 3 years out.  Or maybe it already exists and I don't know about it.

In this age of smart phone apps and powerful PCs, it seems that this could be done.  Maybe it could be a project of the Master Gardeners in each state under the guidance of the extension offices that support them.  Extension offices have wonderful resources to draw upon from both state and federal governments.

I agree, Rabbithutch!  That'd be wonderful.  Save me a lot of time & hassle, lol.

BTW - I love your tagline...  Ain't it the truth?

Gwennifer - thanks!  me too.

Thanks Marc.  Thought about that on the way to HD.  We DID pick up a few more tomatoes, but they won't replace all we lost.  So I think I'm okay.  Plus I'll have those new beds next year...!