Warning: Long Post Ahead
One of the things our new place did not have when we moved in is a garden. As you know, a big part of what we do is gardening (no till raised bed gardening). The majority of our summer veggies come from our garden. And we can our own green beans, tomatoes, spaghetti sauce, salsa, pickles and we freeze our corn for the whole year. I hope to continue to increase what we grow and preserve and want to expand into selling some veggies. Since this is going to be our "permanent" home I wanted to do the garden up right and make sure and make it plenty big. Once I got this garden set up, it ended up being probably like 50% bigger than my last garden. I have 1500sqft of bed space. I also have an asparagus bed and a 100 sqft herb bed.
Another thing I have always wanted to do was an orchard and fruit. I have not really done it before because fruit takes years to produce well and I have never planned on staying long at our previous places. So I was super excited to put in lots of fruit at this place. A coworker of Margo's is a fruit growing extraordinaire (seriously, it is what he does for a living) and helped me in selecting varieties. He also sells fruit trees and fruit from his orchard. If you are looking for fruit trees I recommend him...
Ames Orchard and Nursery. In the orchard, I have put in 3 apple trees, 2 pear trees, 3 peach trees, 1 mulberry tree, 1 asian persimmon, 2 pawpaws, and 2 pecan trees. I also have put in 10 blackberry bushes, 4 raspberry bushes, 6 blueberry bushes, 2 juneberry bushes, and 60 strawberry plants.
When we moved in, a big decision I had to make is where to put the garden. I wanted it close to the house and preferably connected to the yard. I think when I decided and told people where it was going, they thought I was a little crazy, because there was a 40x50 barn where I wanted to put it and a 30ft RV metal carport in the way. When we moved in, besides the house and shop, there were 2 big barns, another small barn, a metal rv carport, and a metal carport and it was all right around the house. The barn we ended up tearing down where the garden was going was in bad shape and needed to go. I actually gave it to a guy in exchange for him tearing it down and hauling it off. I also sold the 2 metal carports. I then had 2 dumptruck loads of topsoil hauled in to level the area and make my raised garden beds. I also hauled in two trailer loads of compost and three loads of mulch. It was a lot of work making the beds and getting it all set up but it turned out great. It is really going to be great once everything is growing and all my herbs and berries are big in a few years. I will continue to post pictures in the future as the garden grows and becomes more of my vision for what it will look like. But here are a few before and after pics. I have done most of my planting for this year already and have corn, green beans, onions, bok choi, radishes, spinach, cabbage, sugar snap peas, and potatoes coming up. I should have squash, cucumbers, and cantaloupe up soon. I also planted peppers, eggplant, and 49 tomato plants today. I still have a few things to plant but it is almost all in.
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| Before - that is the barn we tore down and the rv carport we sold |
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| After - the barn you see is the other barn that we did not tear down |
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| Before |
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| After |
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| Before |
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After
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| In progress |
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| In progress |
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| Garden beds |
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| Garden entrance - the beds on the outside of the official garden space are the herbs and strawberries and I hope to have vines growing over the arbor. |
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| Fruit trees |
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