Hope this is the right place.... part of our back yard garden plan

Good morning!

We live in the city/suburbs of Redding, Ca. Hot hot hot in the summer and a nice full growing season.

Here are some (bad, lol) pictures of our garden beds and a photo of the plan
selenascamera 012 by danjefsel, on Flickr
Our square foot garden beds. Empty, so far... surrounded by bark from
Chris's work (he works for a tree service company). The bark will settle a bit so the beds will still be raised. This is the left
side of the yard/garden.

selenascamera 008 by danjefsel, on Flickr
This is a view from the right

selenascamera 014 by danjefsel, on Flickr
Here is Chris's plan. We are also planting carrots and radishes in between some of the things.

Chris likes "wierd" varieties. Plus we have lots of kids. So we are doing some fun varieties of veggies within the scope of "tomato" and "pumpkin", etc.
So far we have ready to go in, when the soil is ready, that is, lol:
Jarrahdale Pumpkins
Carnival Blend Carrots
Armenian "Snake" Cucumbers
Sweet Richness Melons (THANK YOU SFG in Chicago)
Nasturtiums, of course...
and piles of other stuff that I need more caffeine to write about. But you can see the general idea above... now just the narrowing down of variety


Selena

Sounds like a plan to me.

Hi,

If I read your graph right, you have your corn in an L shape row. Ideally, corn is grown in blocks, ie a square or rectangle, for the best chance of pollination.

Corn is pollinated by pollen falling from the tassles to the silks. When corn is planted in a row, a breeze can easily carry the pollen away.

But, you do have a small amount of corn, so you could pollinate by hand.

I like your plan. In your area of the country your warm season plants should do well.

I'll bet the kids will love the strange crops that they'll be harvesting.

Good luck.

the corn is my honey's way of placating me... I have been teasing him for months that the backyard is HIS garden... because when we started planning, he already had ALL of the boxes full of the things he wanted... I asked him, "So, you are building boxes up in the front yard for me and the kids then, right?" He was confused... he was planting what I wanted LOL... you know... corn... a squash plant.. some nasturtiums... Sigh, I love him, I do. I doubt the corn will actually get in there.

Thanks for the advice I may adjust it to have just one square full of corn if we do end up getting the corn in there I am trying to talk him into moving the winter squash beds up into the summer squash beds because we don't need THAT much summer squash... it IS rather prolific and putting my herbs in there. The back right corner, where there are no beds on the plan, is a trailing rosemary bush... thought it would be nice to have all the herbs together. So I can send the kids out there when I am elbow deep in dinner and need something

quiltbea wrote:I like your plan. In your area of the country your warm season plants should do well.

I'll bet the kids will love the strange crops that they'll be harvesting.

Good luck.

thank you! I do hope everything does well. Seems like everything grows well here... even with the heat, as long as you watch and make sure to water properly. Squash of all varieties, melons, tomatoes, etc... they all do FABULOUSLY here.

We are also going to do some black/chocolate and some of the zebra striped varieties of tomato, about 4 more boxes of various summer squashes and a bunch of colorful whatevers I can find

I have to tell you from personal experience, the Green Zebra and Purple Cherokee toms are really great tasting, esp the Zebra.

Go fo it.