Show Us Your Vegetable Garden Long Views

Here's how I edged the tomato patch

Front row Onions - Yellow
2nd row Basil - Mammoth
3rd row Zinnia (tall white)
4th and 5th rows Tomatoes

Here's a tight shot of the corner of that garden

Here's a wider shot of that area, from the opposite corner showing some sunflowers also tucked in there.

I thought onions would be pretty around the edges (and they are), but I keep stepping on them.

You can see my community garden plot in the lower portion of this picture, with onions around the edges.

Is the shed to hold tools and such, Sky? Your plot looks very nice. Has it been productive? Usually new gardens go like gangbusters because pests haven't found them yet!

Thank you. Yes, the shed is for tools and stuff like that. They're responsible for mowing the property as well, so they're eventually going to put the mower in there, too.

I haven't gotten much out of the plot. We tested the soil and the fertility is very low. We did add truckloads and truckloads of compost, but it's going to take some time and lots more organic matter.

I ended up having less time and resources to devote to the little plot than I'd originally anticipated, so I didn't amend the soil with anything. Most pitiful-looking little green beans plants you've ever seen! But I suspect that a few people are cheating and using miracle grow because their plots are quite productive.

Gaaaak! Miracle Gro!

Ok,
I expanded my trellis and beet beds this weekend, to 4x12' and 4x10', respectively. They're still a work in progress, 'cause I'm not sure about leaving the brick fronts. I ran outta bricks, but I can get more.

Gonna fill 'em with my sifted homemade compost, Black Kow Composted manure, and MG potting mix, which is the mixture I used the first time 'round. I grew wonderful turnips, carrots, lettuce, and Chioggia and Bull's Blood beets. This go 'round, I'll treat the mix with Sluggo Plus to kill the pillbugs and snails that munched on my turnip leaves. But not this time. I want my beet greens AND my turnip greens!

Linda

P.S. Feedback on the mix would be appreciated. Thanks!

Linda, that's really attractive and I love the look of the bricks. I'd keep them.

Can't comment on the mix because I grow organically.

Leslie

Ok, gal, you've encouraged me! I'll finish building up the front wall with Bricks! See how easy I am? Actually, I kinda liked the look once I backed off and saw the pics. It reminds me of the paved streets and French Quarter courtyards I grew up with in, yep, NEW ORLEENZ!

Now that I'm brainstorming this, could ya'll picture some wrought iron and a lamplight near those beds?

And, yeah, I "'know what it means, to miss New Orleans...'"

I can never shake my deep longing for a paved courtyard and a wrought iron fence. I spent a few of my formative years in NOLA. My pockets just never seemed deep enough and now my taproot precludes moving to a new house.

NOLA deeply influenced me as well and it's responsible for the many cast iron pieces we now have, which includes the piece over the new gate to the vegetable garden.

I do love it when people love what I love -- especially NOLA!

I've been in love with NOLA since the first time I visited!

Here's Jack appearing as though he's opening an invisible door to the tomato section of the vegetable garden but it's a mesh door. We enclosed that entire section to keep the crows out of it.

A beautiful addition Pirl. I might have to treat myself someday.

Crows are entirely too smart. Mercifully they've left me alone.

This is probably the longest view of it that I have.

A separate asparagus garden is to the side of the shed.

At the northwest portion of the vegetable garden are the peas and cucumbers on copper trellises, beets, fennel, broccoli, beans, etc.

Raspberries are on the outside of the northwest side.

TB - we hate the crows and the damage they do to crops. Then there are the rabbits and the deer...

Pirl, what a gorgeous gate and wrought iron piece. Your crow excluder looks very handy, too. The mesh would probably be too light for our chicken run, but are those pipes that you're using for uprights?

beautiful garden!

Thanks!

It's copper piping that Jack used to make the enclosure. Thank heavens he did it about two or three years ago when copper wasn't as expensive as it is now.

He also used the copper to make our "tomato tables" so we're both not crawling on the ground to harvest them. There's netting over the top and the tomatoes grow right through it and then spread out so no additional staking is required.

That's ingenious, pirl. I'll bet that makes life easier!

Pirl how big would you say that mesh is and where did you get it and is it reusable or an economical disposable? That might be an answer to my problems with tomatoes. I hate having to constantly tie up the branches. I could do the frame with 1/2" PVC.

Yes you do have a lovely garden....made even more so with all those DLs.

Somehow I missed that long view; you're right, Twiggy, it's gorgeous. What a varied and obviously productive garden, too.

Thanks, GG. It was my husband's brilliant idea.

TB: the mesh is, I believe 4" size, purchased locally at Agway (a feed store as well as a nursery chain here in the northeast) and it lasted three years. He just replaced all of it this past spring.

We did our own daylily hybridizing for 10 years and we have had 1,364 of our own but now I've given away some of them and some of what I've bought to make more room for Japanese irises and dahlias. All the daylilies at the front and side of the vegetable garden are all the results of our hard work.

Here's a very recent very long view so I can't see why one neighbor gets annoyed at the scarecrow since I doubt I'd even notice it from the road. Picky people!

I don't even see the scarecrow. Anyone getting annoyed at a beautiful view like that has something wrong with him.

I was just showing my husband the photos I posted and neither of us could notice the scarecrow either. She looked especially beautiful on 1/19/09 in the gorgeous snow storm we had.

There's no explaining what upsets some people.

That neighbor sounds like one of those pitiful types that needs to get a life. I solved part of a similar problem with junipers, azaleas and crepe myrtles. Now she can look at my shrubbery and not be concerned with what goes on behind my bushes. I wish she'd plant some too.

She's 90 so I never speak a word against her though it doesn't stop her from being nasty to me. We have many more good neighbors than miserable ones and I try not to let them bother me.

Happy birthday to Willie B, the host of this thread. Hope all your veggies are great and I wish you a wonderful year.

Wishing you a Happy Birthday Willie.

Thanks for that info pirl. I'm working on an order for some other supplies and hoping to get it all from the same source. I think I really need some of that mesh. Maybe a smaller size would even work well with cukes and cantaloupes. I can't search around on the ground easily and don't want to have to secure a bunch of trellises. The tomato tables would serve double duty to support row covers in the spring for those last few frosts. I'm getting excited.

I love her hair in that last photo.

You're quite welcome. I generally recommend calling nurseries to see if they have the supplies before wasting time, gas and energy running around. Not my favorite past time.

That mesh just might be the 4 x 6. It works on both the pea and cucumber trellises.

I love the Mohawk hair do also!