As the Garden Grows.......... 12/23/2013

A weekly chronicle of the first year of a new garden.

Scurvy Elephant Farm moved to a new home this fall necessitating starting gardens from scratch.  This presents an opportunity to chronicle the process from the start. As life permits Monday's will be "As the Garden Grows" post days. 

Without further ado lets get started!

I have dabbled with many different gardening styles (traditional row, raised bed, lasagna, square foot and more) and have settled on raised bed intensive gardening (pretty much the square foot method). The beds we are building are made with wood we have sourced for free from local businesses who put pallet and other wood out at the roadside for people to pickup. A local mobile home manufacturer routinely puts 12 1/2 foot long boards out of various thicknesses (score). We are painting the beds with a barn and fence paint to extend their life. As we are not having to buy the wood we are splurging on a garden mix that contains 20% mushroom compost, 20% composted chicken litter and other good stuff. We purchase this by the truck load from Fla/Ga Bark.  Two truck loads has filled 6 12x6ft beds and 2 smaller herb beds as well as some extra for potted plants so far.  Each bed has paper feed bags in the bottom for a weed block.

GB1

 GB1 was planted on December 9th with the following:

Cabbage

Garlic

Flat Parsley

Brussel Sprouts

Sweet Onions

Romaine Lettuce

Sweet Onions

Winter Bor Kale

Here is GB1 as of today December 23rd. Hoops are in place and Cold frame plastic so it may be closed up on cold nights.

All inhabitants are thriving we will have homegrown fresh veggies soon!

GB2 was planted on December 9th with the following:

Cabbage

Sweet Onions

Broccoli

Sweet Onions

Cauliflower

Curly Parsley

Collard Greens

Here is GB2 as of today December 23rd. 

GB3 was planted on December 9th with the following:

Cutting Celery

Radishes - from seed

Rainbow carrots - from seed

Detroit Beets - from seed

Green Peas - from seed

Sweet Onions

Collard greens

Here is GB3 as of today December 23rd. 

All of the plants started from seed are up!

GB4 was planted two days ago on December 21st with the following all from seed:

Early Peas

Kohlrabi

Cherry Bell Radishes

Nantes Carrots

Giant Noble Spinach

Detroit Beets

Gourmet Blend Lettuce

Simpson Black Seeded Lettuce

                                                               Giant Caesar Romaine Lettuce

GB5 and GB6 were just filled today and are not planted yet.

Herb bed east was filled on December 21st

It's sole inhabitant so far is:

 Artemesia "Wormwood"

Herb Bed west was also filled on December 21st and current inhabitants are:

Yarrow and Rue

A view of the garden beds when covered turning them into greenhouse cold frames. We don't have much cold weather in Florida but we still need to cover some days in order to grow year-round. 

That about rounds out the garden other than a variety of potted herbs and some more greens that are potted as well to be introduced later........