2014 Garden Plans
 

Has anyone else started planning their garden for this year? We greatly expanded our garden last year to 9 raised beds (12'x4'), plus our herb garden (which is our backyard landscape). I'm still deciding on what exactly to plant this year and in what quantities. But, we will probably do more tomatoes (cherry and roma), carrots, lettuce, potatoes, sweet potatoes, a couple varieties of squash, okra, cucumbers, maybe pumpkin (my son's request), maybe beans (still have lots of low growing bush variety from last year, but may switch to pole beans this year), maybe peas (have extras from last year), peppers. Oh, and the strawberry plants we planted last year should be performing well this year - hopefully! I'm super excited about the strawberries! :) I'm also planning to grow a variety of herbs. We need to tear out most of our herb garden due to a terrible infestation of morning glories. So, I'm undecided what we will get planted there. I'd like to grow basil, dill, parsley, sage (my sage is spreading like a weed! lol), mint, rosemary, and maybe lavendar and a couple others.

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Oh, and sunflowers! We planted 12 sunflowers last year, but due to storms and squirrels, only got to harvest about 3 of them. But, they were delicious and so pretty! I'll definitely be planting these again.

Re: 2014 Garden Plans
 

We've been working on clearing out a new space in the backyard for our garden. Unfortunately we are battling vines that are persistant. But I want to do a much better job feeding my family fresh this year.

Re: 2014 Garden Plans
 

What kinds of vines are you battling CelticJourney? I made the mistake of planting morning glories on our fence when we first bought our house... And have regretted it with a passion ever since! They are horribly invasive and are now all over our yard - even in our garden area which is far away from where we originally planted them.

Re: 2014 Garden Plans
 

Morning glories are pretty but SUCH a pest in our area. We have a related weed called bindweed that completely infested my garden at my last house. :( When I see it here I blast it with Round-up b/c I am so worried about it taking over again. Normally I am very organic but bindweed gets no mercy from me!

I have raised beds, too, and a new area along our retaining wall that I want to do something with. I might be able to harvest a few spears from our asparagus bed I planted last spring, too.

I got a catalogue from The Cook's Garden the other day and have been drooling over several things. I think I'm going to get the purple podded peas, for sure, just for something fun. I like growing the unusual colours.

I bought some elderberry plants last year but didn't get the in the ground, unfortunately (long story, had a minor emergency last fall that interfered with a lot of my gardening goals b/c our money and mental resources were directed elsewhere) but I did get them potted up, so hopefully they'll make it through the winter and I can plant them in the spring.

I had great luck with my hoophouse last year (have a terrible problem with leafminers that affects my chard, beets, etc.) so I'm looking forward to using that again, but need to come up with a better idea for being able to get in/out of it. It was just bent poles with some light fabric on top but since you have to secure it all the way around (we get heavy winds here at times) it makes it hard to actually get in/out. So I want to find some sort of solution for that.

I need a recommendation for a variety of pole beans. The kind I have been using (would have to look up what it was) were horrid and I'm about to give up. I've had way better luck with bush beans.

Re: 2014 Garden Plans
 

Unfortunately these totally lack any redeeming value - I'm not exactly sure what they are, but they are strong enough that they take over and bring down trees. As a matter of fact, one of the things that has to happen before I can continue with the garden is to have dh take down a dead tree about 20 yd from the garden - I'm not as afraid of it falling on me as I am the branches that are nested in the vines and might come loose at any time.

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/01/09/egu8ury9.jpg

Started last night, actually. :mrgreen

We are changing the border to our beds to cinder blocks this year, and I plan to plant marigolds in the holes of the blocks. We have so many rabbits...



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Re: 2014 Garden Plans
 

We made the switch to pole beans and I'm never going back. This will be the first year I don't plant *any* bush beans, with the exception of one row of a yellow bean I like (haven't found a yellow pole I like yet).

Fortex pole bean - Most flavourful pole bean out there for short-season areas (I'm a lowly zone 2). They get lovely and long - three times the length of a bush bean - while still staying tender. They blanch and freeze very well; texture holds up well cooking from frozen in the winter. Superior fresh, though. Flowers are very pale yellow.

Emerite pole bean - Almost a tie with Fortex and almost as good a flavour. Beans are long, but not quite as long as Fortex; they hold longer, though. BEST bean to blanch and freeze for winter. They don't even do that little skin slough thing when they're cooked from frozen. I pickled these for the first time last summer and they're awesome. Purple flowers.

Rattlesnake - 2013 was my first year growing these. They get rave reviews on gardening forums, but I wasn't impressed with the flavour. (Keep in mind that bean flavour can vary, depending on your soil and climate.) From frozen, though, they're actually tender-crisp, so the lovely texture somewhat makes up for the slight blandness. This is a speckled/striped purple/green bean that is very pretty on the vine. If I recall, the flowers are purple. I'll be trialing this one again. ETA: Rattlesnake is also used as a dry bean.

I will never grow anything with Kentucky or Blue Lake in it's name ever again, pole or bush. They're always terrible in my soil/climate. They're viewed as the benchmark of pole beans, apparently, but I don't know why.

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I planned out our 2014 garden last fall. I had to because I needed to know where best to put the fall garlic (5 varieties: 119 cloves and 836 bulbils).

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That happened to me this year with two blueberries and a shrub rose. They're doing fine in the basement so far, though the rose brought in aphids. :mad They've infested my hot pepper starts now and I'm in the process of erradicating them. I. Hate. Aphids. They're the reason I don't grow lettuce anymore. They don't touch spinach, so I grow that instead. Less hassle.

Re: 2014 Garden Plans
 

I am planning right now. Last year was my first real year gardening and I did so many different things. This year I want to plant more of the same types of things. I have 2 raised beds, 1 little raised beds and a bunch of pots. Trying to figure out what I want to do about an herb garden. We also want to plant some blueberry bushes.

Re: 2014 Garden Plans
 

Oh, blueberry bushes would be awesome! We have raspberry bushes and strawberries. We are hoping to buy some larger property in the country in the next few years, so haven't invested in longer-term berries like blueberries. But, I definitely want to plant those when we buy our property to settle down in!

We started out with 2 raised beds too and experimented with those for a couple years before finally expanding last year. What kinds of herbs do you want to grow?

Re: 2014 Garden Plans
 

I keep sitting down to plan but never do it. I need to start though.

Re: 2014 Garden Plans
 

With blueberries make sure to buy some bags of acid-loving soil. I put them in raised beds, cut my clay with sand, and added blueberry fertilizer and it was a dismal failure. The nursery sold me bags of acid-loving "soil" (I believe they said azaelia [sp?] and something else on the bags...) and it went so much better! I had top-dressed with that before but I needed to replace the soil completely. They are in raised beds.

Re: 2014 Garden Plans
 

I think I just want to do Basil, Cilantro and Oregano since that is what I like to cook with the most. I also have a peppermint plant from last year and wonder if I can revive it?

Re: 2014 Garden Plans
 

Can you revive it?? :haha :spit the better question is, "does it ever die?!?!"
:giggle I was told to plant my mint in a pot and it wouldn't spread.
I have an entire hedge of mint. Its the one thing that will drive me to buy roundup. :lol it wraps around the end of the house, around the side and halfway up the side of the house. Thats about five years of growth.

Re: 2014 Garden Plans
 

I keep mint in an above-ground pot on cement and so far it has stayed tame.

Re: 2014 Garden Plans
 

lol Mom2Boys! Yes, I have some that just keeps coming back year after year. We have it in a really shady spot behind some rose bushes where nothing else grows. Whatever is left in the autumn, right before winter, I'll harvest and either dehydrate or freeze. And the shade and roses keep it in check so it doesn't completely take over.

@BenjaminsWife, those are some of our favorite herbs too. My husband especially likes cilantro, so I try to keep it around. And there is nothing like fresh basil, tomato, fresh mozzarella and balsamic reduction salad... yum. If you have room (or want to combine basil with your landscaping), there is a basil that has the most beautiful lavender blooms which is a great addition to the more traditional basil plants. We have a pretty sage that has flourished in our garden, even starting to spread like a weed. I need to give some away or transplant some of it elsewhere this spring.