Because I can be QUITE contrary, and I have a garden!
Ken and I have a division of responsibilities in our house — I reign in the kitchen, and the yard is his demesne. He works hard — making multiple trips to the hardware store each weekend, setting up an elaborate irrigation system, and planting a fledgling orchard. He even feeds the birds. But sometimes our territories overlap. After years of apartment living, and planting in pots (we still have a potted herb garden that lives on the deck near the kitchen, and a couple of potted citrus trees), we finally have a kitchen garden to grow vegetables in, and I couldn’t be more excited.
We could have built a raised bed ourselves from untreated lumber, but with two more than full time jobs, we decided to just order a kit from the Square Foot Garden Foundation. It’s Amish-made and required no tools for assembly. We filled it with a mixture of peat moss, vermiculite, and compost from the bin thoughtfully left behind by the previous owners of Stratford House.
Now’s the fun part — planting. We’ve already got peppers, eggplant and fennel, thanks to a trip to the local nursery, artichokes grown from seed (the only success of our pathetic seed starts this winter), and a few tomato plants I snagged at Tomatomania. (Bedouin, Marmara and Sungold. I think we might need more tomatoes. I really love homegrown tomatoes).
To help our garden grow, we thought we’d do a little insect management. We bought this mason bee house, hoping to attract some of the pollinators. Mason bees don’t sting or swarm, so they’re safe with kids and don’t violate local zoning regulations, but they are active pollinators and can really boost your garden’s productivity.
To keep unwanted bugs at bay (and we get a lot of them — there’s a lake near our house, so the mosquitoes abound) we hung this bat box, which my mother in law thoughtfully gave us when we lived in a studio apartment in Manhattan. It’s finally getting some use (though we haven’t seen bats yet).
Any suggestions as to what else we should plant? What are your garden growing experiences? Any tips and tricks for us novice farmers?
Hi! LOVE the mason bee house, SO CUTE.
A bit concerned about your artichoke plant though…that one can (and should, at maturity) take up that entire box. They’re big. You might want to stick that in the ground. 🙂 (The fennel can get pretty huge, too.)
xoxo, Rachael (your friendly neighborhood Master Gardener.)
LOL, you’re right, Rachael. I actually had no intention of planting the artichoke in the raised bed, but Ken beat me to it while I was grocery shopping. I might transplant this weekend.
If your tomatoes grow like mine do, you’ll probably find them running into each other in the box! I always have to spread mine farther apart. Artichoke plants supposedly take up a lot of space too, though I’ve never grown them.
I love the bee and bat houses! We have a lot of bats that come live here March-November so I want to get a box soon. Our mosquitos are terrible and I hope it would help.
Shishito peppers?! Where did you find those?! How cool!
Can you grow squash in that container (or would it need more room to grow)? Just think of the flowers you could stuff! How about cukes?!
And outside of the bed, you could also grow some blueberries in pots. You have to grow 2 different varieties within close proximity to encourage cross pollination, but otherwise they’re easy (and kids LOVE to pick the berries off and eat them).
Armstrong on Glenarm. And I can grow zucchini if I train it up.
Congratulations! Can’t wait to read more as your garden grows this summer!
How fun! I’ve had great success with artichokes. I cover them every year with straw when they quit producing and they just come back in the spring.
Looking forward to lots of vege recipes from you this summer!
I love the structure of square foot gardening–I’m the master gardener volunteer for 12 school gardens, and I use it with the kids and teachers…they love it!
I agree, you can never have too many tomatoes (I’m sightly obsessed, it’s my business!) But–have you thought about companion planting some lettuce and basil under your tomato plants when they get a bit taller? Lettuce loves the shade provided by the tomatoes–it doesn’t like really hot weather, which you probably already know (sorry). But–you can grow lettuce throughout the summer if you give it a bit of shade and harvest often so it doesn’t bolt. I like to give tomatoes plenty of growing space from each other–but you can interplant shorter, less sun reliant plants underneath them, which really maximizes your space. Also–trellising is a great way to grow additional crops that need a lot of space to spread (like peas, cucumbers, beans, and squash), plus it adds visual interest to the garden. Oops–sorry, I always get carried away talking about gardening! so glad to find your blog, and look forward to visiting again soon!
Julie
You’ve got tomatoes going already, huh? It’s still a bit too cold up here. I can’t wait, though!
I love your planter bed. Those little boxes are very interesting.