What's In That Garden Anyway?

You might be wondering what we have planned for a garden that is about 10,000 square feet.  In case you were wondering, here is the breakdown of the plan so far.

Broccoli (3 varieties in a 28x24 area, approx 100 plants)
Cauliflower (2 varieties in a 18x16 area approx 40 plants with flower rows on 2 sides)
Carrots (2 varieties in 3 double rows that are 16' long and 2' wide)
Potatoes (2 varieties that are in a 12x24 area)
Lemon Cucumbers (in a 7x18 area)
Tomatoes (6 varieties in a 14x20 area 30 plants total)
Green Beans (a 20x30 area)
Zucchini, Crookneck, and winter squash ( in a 14x30 area)
Pickling cucumbers (in a 8x30 area)
Corn (3 similar se+ varieties in a 30x40 area~  An early, mid-season, and late ripening variety)
Strawberries (in a 40x30 area)
Kohlrabi (2 varieties in a 6x16 area)
Onions (in a 4x16 area)
Large pig feed plot planted with turnips, beets, canola etc (in a 40x60 area)
Melons (3 varieties planted in a 10x80 area~ cantaloupe, watermelon, crenshaw)
Peas, Lettuce, Spinach, Swiss chard and other shorter row crops will be mixed into smaller areas as well.

We have 2 large areas that are approximately 15x20 open to offer to friends and family to come plant their own crops if they'd like to.  Although, we also plan to share a lot of the bounty from our planned crops we'd also like to give people a place to plant their own if they'd like to.  We had some dear friends do that for us and we learned so much and enjoyed having a part in growing our food.  We wanted to do the same for others as well.

We purposefully plan to plant excess for a few reasons. #1 to be able to share the bounty with friends, family, and the local food pantry.  #2 we also plan to sell some of the excess to help defray the costs for all the seeds, the professional tilling fees, and the large amount of hours we will be tending to this garden (we know we won't be getting return on our time in this venture as that would be pretty difficult).  #3 we wanted to grow enough in quantities it would be easy to have enough to preserve batches in large quantities at a time as well as be able to sell enough in quantities to make it worth our time to coordinate a sale/delivery.  #4 to be able to feed to the pigs and chickens some garden produce to hopefully reduce the commercial feed bill.

We plan to use a lot of mulch to cover the areas of bare soil.  There are several reasons for this.  #1 mulch is healthy for the soil, as it breaks down we have richer soil. #2 It helps keep moisture in the ground longer. #3 It helps even out soil temperature from the extremes of air temperature at night and during the day. #4 It helps control weeds by smothering them.

There are some drawbacks to mulch, like possible hang out for pests like insects and slugs as well as mice.  We are hoping the cats will help us out with the 4 legged critters and we might have to run small chicken tractors to help control the bugs and slugs.

Our weed control plan consists of 4 children and 2 adults equipped with hoes, trowels, and shovels, a large stack of straw bales, and a consistent schedule of keeping up on the little weed offenders before they become large weed offenders.

You can see the large straw bales scattered here and there around, this is in preparation for spreading mulch as the soil gets warmed up and ready to plant.  We don't want to add the mulch too early when the soil is still cool because we might not get as good of germination rates because the mulch will insulate the ground some and the soils will be slower to warm up.

Here is the larger stack of straw bales.  This is about 1/3 the total amount of straw we were able to stockpile this winter in preparation for the garden.  We feel pretty fortunate to have found a free source of straw.  My heart goes pitter-patter when Mr. Wonderful pulls up with a big trailer full of something useful around the place!

So you can see we have a plan, and we've done some research to get us started.  It might be a little idealistic and that is OK with us if you think so.  The only way to learn what we are capable of as a family is to set goals, get started working towards the goals, and learn from it for future reference.