West Side Garden Beds

Here is the drafted plan for the West Garden Beds:

(You can click on it to see it enlarged.)

Here is the general idea:

• Use three beds, sow cover crops in the other three beds (possibly doing a Fall rotation of crops in one of them). Viz., Spring Barley in the Far Southwest bed by the composters, which will be turned under end of May, or so, in time for warm-weather crops. In the other two, Bell Bean (which attracts beneficials and is cut late summer in our climate) and Speckled Field Pea (which does produce edible peas but also greatly benefits the soil), or Spring Triticale (a sort of wheat-rye cross).
• Plant bee balm (maybe with a rock border) in the rocky, clay soil - apparently it does pretty well
• The two circled fruit trees are the only ones in this patch that survived, along with the one by the back Southeastern fence and woodpile.
• I would love to do vermiculture this year as well. Apparently putting down newspaper will also attract worms (from the earth) and help aerate your soil.

In the three beds with crops, from East to West:

• on the Eastern side of the first bed, celery, which is complemented by leeks (and I love leeks, so lots of those) (see below) and spinach. Peas, which are friendly to celery and carrots, as well as to radishes and spinach (and strawberries). ("Do not plant peas with chives, gladiolus, grapes, late potatoes, or onions"). Eggplant, which is companionable with peas as well as spinach, and its herbal friends thyme and marigold. On the Western side of that first bed, besides carrots and radishes, also lettuce because it does well with radishes and strawberries (and beets). Leeks may be planted near apple trees, carrots, celery, and onions to improve their growth. They repel carrot flies. ("Avoid planting leeks near legumes.") WUPS. Then why am I planting them near peas? Instead of leeks, we'll do beets which are a good companion for lettuce, and put the leeks in the other bed where the beets were going to go. Lots of beets are good too - that is one of my favorite vegetables, for the root and the greens!
• So on the middle bed. This I am thinking of dividing into thirds. 1) The southern third will contain summer savory and bush beans (summer savory deters bean beetles and improves growth and flavor). Growing tip for beans: "Do not allow beans to mature on the plant, or it will stop producing, and do not pick beans or cultivate when they are wet, or it will spread viral diseases." I also had marked down to grow onions with this guild because when summer savory (same as chamomile) is planted with onions, it improves their flavor. However, onions are enemies with peas! And we also do not have a good wire arch for the peas in this bed. So we'll stick to doing peas in the Eastern bed (of the West Side), and in this middle bed do (either kind of) chamomile, summer savory, onions, (which also benefit strawberries, so that is a good location) and leeks. That may actually take up half the bed; we will see. 2) In the middle third of the bed, I was planning on carrots, rosemary, and sage. This is because sage and rosemary deter carrot flies. If it gets squished in this bed, I'll do the rosemary in one of the Far East beds, and just put rosemary cuttings by the crowns of the carrots. 3) In the northern third, leeks, garlic, lettuce, and possibly onions. Leeks planted near onions improve their growth; leeks also ward off carrot flies. Garlic benefits lettuce, and deters carrot root flies. And when onions and leeks are intercropped with carrots, it can confuse the carrot and onion flies! Note: "Keep onions away from peas and asparagus."
• The third bed for crops is the strawberry patch. Saturday, 02/12, I thinned the patch out, till there was one plant only about every 12 inches. This is advised if you don't want your crop to choke itself out. I would also like to interplant thyme and borage in this bed. Thyme, as a border for strawberries, deters worms. Borage strengthens the resistance of strawberries to insects and disease.

There are so many things I would like to grow! I am, however, a little overwhelmed at this point because it ALL new to me, so baby steps to begin with. :-)

The thinned-out strawberry patch (a little bare on the ground cover, especially for these high winds we are having!) -

The bees are bustling -

Weathered parts of the garden beds that need fixing (Dad's project after they get back from the Holy Land) -

By the way, I have not begun any seedlings yet. It's a combination of still deciding exactly what to plant, figuring out how many weeks they can have been transplanting, and all this stuff. Like I said, I'm overwhelmed. :-) But it is gradually getting clearer in my mind!