Show Us Your Vegetable Garden Long Views

Sujo, I am very impressed with what you've accomplished! Your garden is just gorgeous. And it's so much fun to hear how people integrate their gardens into their lives, like Terriculture's and yours.

Here's my garden now; it's hard to get it all in, and aerial views don't work well either because of its size, but this is looking down one of the brick paths toward the central patio, with the greenhouse to the right. Ahead are the tomato tripods, with squash and peppers and eggplant to the left and beans to the right.

Terriculture, that's hysterical!

The skin might also have something to do with the variety.

BELIEVE IT....we call it the magic garden (complete with a fairie who grants wishes if you put a glass gem in her flower.) The dirt came from an old estate that was graded, very crusty but really full of goodness. I have been amending it with pure peat when plants get pulled and sent to compost heaven.
Thanks yotedog, the bricks are dry stacked. They are not terribly stable but I didn't want mortar for various reasons.

terriculture, giggling with your found object folk art face. Are you left handed? Very creative..........
greenhouse gal I would love to re-do our patio with bricks like your walkways!! (Childhood memories of installing a brick walk with my daddy one summer, which is still there)

That's beautiful, Sujo! I really like how it looks. When I get a house, I'm hoping to do some raised beds. I've seen lots of pictures on DG, and they always look so nice.

And I'm a Bass fan as well. It's a good beer for just about any time.

Funny salad smiley, terri! Sounds like you're as determined to garden as I am. For now (I'm hoping to move soon), my garden is a 30-40 minute drive from home, and about a 15-minute drive from work. (It's true. Americans do a lot of driving, unfortunately.)

And I have my little garden helper (my nephew), so getting a chance to have fun with him and show him where food comes from and how nature works is priceless. (Actually, at 2, he's more of a force of destruction than a helper, but he's learning. It's amazing how many plants get stepped on and bounce right back up.)

Greenhouse_gal, your garden looks beautiful, love the mix of flowers and veggies.
I'm not sure of the variety, only thats it's for outdoor growing.! I bought 3 little plug plants from the allotment shop.
I will ask what they are next time I go there.

Sujo, what makes you think I'm left handed? I'm not! glad you liked Miss letuce.

Dividedsky, Happy helper you have there, it's great when they enjoy the garden and learn about plants!
My garden at home has no room for veggies, thats why I got the plot at the allotments.

Sujo, this is our second iteration of a garden walk. The first one we laid ourselves on a bed of sand, but it became bumpy and sunken very quickly. We finally, years later, got a landscape guy to do it right and we're really happy with it. I suppose we could have done it right in the first place, and put down a non-shifting base and rapid-set concrete, but the garden area was just settling after we had to pull it all up to fix the septic field, and even that probably wouldn't have worked at that point.

Terri, I love your hollyhocks! I have grown them in the past but they just don't seem to want to come back. The pink is just gorgeous! Maybe we could do a seed exchange of some sort? Are they biennials or perennials? Mine were bi and it was hard keeping track of them.

This message was edited Jul 12, 2009 11:54 AM

Your gardens are so inspirational. Before digital cameras and uploading pictures to the internet it would have been impossible to enjoy so much beauty and creativity at one time all in one place. It's a garden tour without the crowds and heat, and best of all you get to meet the individual gardener.

Greenhouse_gal, I'm not sure if they are perennials, but they seed themselves around. You are most welcome to the seeds, I'll try to collect them before the squirrels do!

Pamgarden, nice to meet you. It's great with a digital camera! so easy to upload the pics.

Sujo that is a wonderful design . YOu are more than welcome to come and design mine for me :)
what a cute little helper.
greenhouse that looks like a nice place to sit in your garden .

Terriculture---It's so much fun to see a garden in England right here on DG. Your pics are fantastic as well as your garden. I think the climate I live in is the most like yours as any in the US. At least, we in Oregon have always been lead to believe that. My hollyhocks will be blooming soon for their second year, but they do not look as great so far as they did last year. They are a bit rusty. They are double pink ones and very pretty. I am very curious as to why your little spruce(?) is staked? Your garden is so very neat and tidy and mine is such a hodge podge. I will take some pics soon, though. Maybe after a bit of weeding? LOL

Taynors, it's a lovely place to sit. The peach tree gives a little shade, too. One morning we were seated on the bench enjoying the view, and we got to see a Baltimore oriole hunting for insects among the rows, a bluebird singing to its mate, house wrens giving forth with their bubbly song, and a hummingbird sipping at the raspberry flowers.

Terri, if you get any seeds Dmail me and I'll give you my address. Also let me know if there's anything you want to swap. I have lots of French tomato and bean seeds.

greenhouse_gal i love blue birds ! oh how wonderful ! those orioles are so pretty.

It's like the scene in Snow White where the birds and butterflies in the forest are chirping around her, landing on her hand - magical!

Well, they weren't quite landing on my hand, but we got good looks at all of them. It was just lovely!

taynors - I am going to redo my raised beds for next year and put in a drip irrigation system. I was wondering about having the short sides "open-ended" so the line could weave in-and-out easily. Your photo has given me some ideas. Great use for your leftover lumber.

terriculture - my brother lives in London, he is an avid gardener, too. When I first saw your garden photo, I commented to myself how much the houses looked like my grandmother's home in Walthamstow - then I looked to see where you are located, and realized you are in the same part of the world. My uncle and I used to visit his "allotment" in London when I was a child - I loved those outings with him. It was truly a "Victory Garden"

Greenhouse Gal---I LOVE your sitting area in your garden. Wish we could make one but we have put the raised beds too close together. We do have a small sitting porch that looks out over the garden, though. We really enjoy that. Our hummingbird feeder hangs from the porch and they swoop and dive very near us. DH calls them tiny fighter pilots.

I dont have garden dirt. I live on top of a limestone ridge in central Texas with a couple inces of top soil underlain with small and huge limestone slabs. Raised beds built inside large dogpens for deer protection worked for a while but I figured if I was going vertical, I might as well go all the way. So, over the last five years, I have added more and more of the stacked containers you see in the attached photo. Last year I built the 6 ft high privacy fence which keeps out the deer and just went nuts with more stacked containers and built raised platforms to mount them on. It makes access to all the plants very easy. Each pole of 4 pots has 16 plant sites on them. I have about 500 plant sites total on all the poles I have. It is surprisingly easy to keep most of those plant sites producing all year long. I keep new plants from seeds growing continuously and as one vegetable/flower completes its cycle of growth, I pull it out and replace it. The pots mount on standard 3/4 inch electrical conduit. Each pot costs $6 from www.theezgro.com. You can buy complete kits of pots, poles, grow mix and fertilizer or just the pots from them. I strongly suggest you use their growing system and components untill you gain experience and start experimenting around with different grow mix and fertilizers.

This is primarily a flower garden with some vegetables mixed in with them. Early season vegetables are long gone and have been replaced as have some early blooming spring flowers. It is simple to pull out an old plant, add a little grow mix to replace what came out with the old plant, and replant. In my relatively mild climate, with proper planning, I can keep all 500 plant sites pumping out something for 12 months of the year if I wont to. The type of grow mix I use has lasted for years without any major problems. I have grown large tomato plants in these pots and have grown 6 foot tall sun flowers out of one of the top pots. The trick to stacked container gardening is to use a fast draining grow mix that just about eliminates the possibility of overwatering and water as much as necessary as the plants require. Diluted soluable fertilizer mixed in with each watering keeps your plants growing lush and strong. Each of the stacked container grow poles in this photo is watered with a 1/4 inch water line controlled from a mechanical timer. Twice a day, I set the timer to water the poles just enough so that water drips out of the bottom pot. The fast draining grow mix prevents overwatering and plants with different water needs can be grown on the same grow poles. I have petunia and dusty miller on the same pole, batchelor buttons and trailing phlox on another pole, mini bell peppers and chinese leaves on another pole, vinca and osteospermum on another pole, tomato's, basil and signet marigold on another pole, etc, etc.

Jaywhacker... if you could figure out how to affix some chicken wire or netting to form an inside perimeter pea fence (for cukes, tomatoes for that matter) you could get tons of veggies from just one of those "islands."

The grow poles alone can turn out tons of veggies as they are succession planted all year long. But I have made use of the middle of the platforms by filling them with one and two gallon pots and other type containers with strawberries and various type of flowers I wonted to try. Lots of the flowers are spring bloomers only so they have been removed and replaced with the type that grow better in our high 90's and triple digit summers......such as vinca. I have lots of vinca coming along in one gallon and larger pots because it is the one type of plant that can survive and thrive in hot summer weather. However, I have them mostly planted in the poles or sitting in containers in areas of the yard where they get dappled tree shade or late afternoon shade from the fence. You are right about the center of those platforms being capable of lots more production though,,,,,,,but geez!! Thar aint but one of me! If you look close in the photo, you will see a 2/2 rim around the outside of the platform. I can cover it with plastic and make a water bed out of it filled with containers to be bottom watered. Fertilized water dripping from the grow poles will drip into the water bed, making further use of the fertilizer being fed to the poles. One of these days I will get around to doing this......if I can get me cloned or multiplied or something.:-)

Surprise plant of the year for me has been wax begonia's. Lots of the red and white colors you see on those poles is wax begonia, some of them in full all day sunshine and other's that get some afternoon shade from the oak tree. They all thrive, yet they are supposed to be sort of semi shade plants......certainly not listed as full sunshine! No bugs or any kind of problems. Dont need dead heading, just walk by and slap them now and then and the old blooms pop off the plants. My son thought I had flipped out one day as he watched me walking around slapping the hell out of the begonias. :-) I am attaching a photo of a pole of red begonias (pole on immediate right). Next year, I will not plant so many on one pole but will spread them out amongst all the poles for more color. The pole on the immediate left has mini bell peppers in the top pot and "chinese leaves" in the other pots. I tried one cutting of those chinese leaves and didn't really like them much. They are making lots more leaves though and I got company coming so I will feed them a "treat". If they dont like them any more than I did, I will pull them and throw them away and replant with something else. Speaking of growing a ton of stuff.........you can succession plant a couple of these poles with a mesclun mix (or a stir fry mix) and have salads (or stir frys) almost all year long.

Here is what I am calling "J's folly". I intended to plant determinat tomato's in the top pot of this pole but goofed up and planted indeterminate's instead. There are two tomato plants in the top pot and they were up to 10 foot high untill I got tired of trimming them and tying them off. This pole is mounted in a 12 gallon pot so I could plant petunias in the pot. I get in trouble every time I try some cutesy, cutesy thing like that. Not a firm enough foundation so the pole blew over twice and knocked off 6 tomato's. I have the silly thing tied off to a fence post to prevent it blowing over anymore and have quit trimming it and staking it and am just letting it sprawl along the top of the fence. Production from these two plants looks like it will be somewhere between 20 to 30 tomato's barring any more catastrophes. Triple digit heat is pounding the heck out of it though. I did wont to show this photo though to show you what can be grown in a stacking container growing system.

Lots of bees buzzing around here lol! Hello Beebonnet and Honeybee!
Beebonnet, Thank you for your lovely comments on my plot. The conifer has some bamboo canes around it because I'm growing sweet peas up it, but they are not doing very well there so bad idea LOL! My garden isn't that weed free or tidy! I let it do it's own thing mostly. I often get that rust on the Hollyhocks too, but they still flower and I usually just take off the lower leaves. It's great to see all the veggie gardens here, I'm still not sure when to pick things.

Greenhouse-gal, Will do! What are French tomatoes? different from the others? I haven't heard of French toms lol!
I've got Moneymaker, Alicante and Beef ones. I only managed to sow runner beans this year, no french!! What bean seeds do you have?

Thank you Honeybee! Our allotment site has been used for growing veggies for over 100 years. I think most of the houses surrounding it are that old too!
Nice you remember days at the lottie fondly. Walthamstow is North from me, at the end of the line on the train, if I remember correctly! There are quite a few allotments in and around London. Where does your brother live?

Hi Jaywhacker, I recognise your white planters! Have you still got Sunflowers growing?

Today's offering...... Courgette cake, enjoy!

This message was edited Jul 14, 2009 2:34 AM

Jaywhacker, Amazing container growing. You've got it all there. You probably already know this, but lavender, my absolute favorite scent, grows really well in thin, limestone soil.

Terriculture, What a fabulous job you've done with your garden. It does look so British--there's a certain style. Must be in the UK genes. It's incredible that the plots have been acively gardened for 100 years. Imagine all the hands that have cared for that soil. I don't think anyone has ever gardened in my soil before me. There were cattle here, but it's been in hay for many years.

Sujo and Greenhouse gal and honeybee and Dividedsky and willieB, I am humbled by your gardens. I know I missed others, like during the Oscar Awards, that are truly deserving of mention here.

Thank you Pamgarden! and everyone else here on this thread! I've enjoyed seeing all your gardens and meeting you.
I'll be back in a couple of weeks, so please don't think I'm being rude if you don't get a reply from me straight away!
Wishing you all fabulous, fresh veggies, Cheers!
Terri.

Oooops! the long view.

that is a cake i can eat and not feel guilty LOL

Terri, I grow almost all French tomato varieties except for Valiant, which was my favorite when I first started gardening but then became unavailable. It's surfaced again and I'm curious to see what I think of it now, so I have several plants of it growing. The others are Cornue des Andes, Noire de Crimée, Rose de Berne, an heirloom variety that I call Ste. Colombe because that's where I got it, and St. Pierre, which is about my favorite of all of them. Cornue des Andes is a paste type but has a great flavor; I've never grown the next two; Ste. Colombe is a type grown in the southwest of France and is pink with green shoulders; no one has a name for it there. And St. Pierre is a standard red tomato with a wonderful tart-sweet flavor; it's early and smooth and keeps producing when the others have given up.

Love your cake - and the long view!

terriculture - I don't eat "real cake" but will take a "slice" of yours anytime :)

I'll look-up my brother's snail-mail address and let you know.

Yes, I seem to remember Walthamstow is at the end of the line. It was the last train I took out of there when I left England in 1966.

Have a great holiday!

What a great thread! You all have fantastic gardens... and I'm soooo jealous of the amount of space some of you have!!!

Here's a really long shot of our garden (stiched together photos for 180 view). We ended up taking out all the overgrown landscaping (what's the point of boxwood, you can't eat it!) when we moved in two years ago and have planted fruits and veggies instead. We have limited space and two big dogs that need some grass to run so we didn't have much choice! I take more pleasure in looking out the window at sunripened tomatoes than at ornamentals anyway. :)

From left to right is our GH, strawberries, squash, avacado tree, kiwi vines, corn, amaranth, tomatillos, peppers, tomatoes, herbs, and finallly citrus trees with melons on the fence behind. (The little house is for our two hens.)

We eventually want to pull out part of our front lawn and put in some nice looking raised beds. Our neighbors will just have to get used to tomatoes as landscaping like we have. :)

Sarah, it's hard to see details because the picture is small, but it looks like you've done a lot with your place. And I think raised beds look great, especially if you stick some flowers in there too, as a lot of us do.

I started with 16'x64' feet then added 48'x64' (8 x 14'x28' raised beds). Then 4 more 20x28' beds . . . now its just old fashioned plowed fields LOL! The beds keep get bigger and less structured (Oh my my)!

Phase 1 pictured below.

Phase 2 shown below . . . .

Phase 3!

This year

I've really enjoyed this thread, there are so many great garden designs. Here's my humble contribution, which was built over the 4th of July weekend. It's approx. 17'x2' and about 6" high and I used leftover wood and dirt from a deck project. I bought composted cow manure and composted cotton burs to amend the dirt/ native clay soil. I used other pieces of wood to create a barrier between the soil and the actual fence.

I planted acorn squash (bush) and buttercup squash in the "bare" mid-area of the bed and two sprouts are barely visible if you look closely.

From left to right:
cape honeysuckle
salvia mystic blue spire
2 pentas
2 more pentas on right side.

I planted these in a vain effort to attract butterflies/ bees to help encourage pollination. I also need to build a trellis for the buttercup squash and train the vines up the fence.

jozeeben looking good. Mine is getting bigger and bigger each year too LOL i can't stop !
JohnCritchton even a humble garden is a great garden. Think about how much less weeding you do then the rest of us :)

jozeeben - I like your arch - what's growing there? I was trying to think of a way to grow melons/cucumbers over an arch - what materials did you use?

Do you have a drip irrigation system? Or are they garden hoses I see in your photos?

I'm seriously thinking about doing an arch like that next year, too.

Around here, though, it would take most of the season for the cucumbers to fill it in. Maybe some sort of small gourds?

HoneyB - That picture is of edible and non-edible gourds -- we're just growing the edible ones now -- "cucuzzi" is the current favorite. I need to change the design of the arch because it sagged a bit under the weight. I used T-posts, wood stakes, wood arches, 1x4s, and cattle panels to construct. Here's the details: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/761658/

I use soaker hoses I get from Lowes but have been thinking about T-Tape?

The small ornamental gourds (curcubitis pepo) and cukes don't climb as aggresively as the real gourds (lagenaria siceraria). I have seeds to trade if interested! Nutty, firm and so good but need lots of space!