Planning the Planting

The only good thing about all the rain we've been getting lately is that the puddles show me which areas of the garden are especially in need of topsoil. As far as I know there aren't any vegetables that grow well in a bog! So, I slogged around the garden perimeter, walking off measurements in preparation for planting the garden on paper. That's the fun part.

It's not a very big garden, barely a small plot compared to the humongous garden we had at Lost River. Now THAT was a garden!

Double-dug soil, enhanced with compost and various organic fertilizers, terraced with two-foot-high rock ledges, and with grassy paths alongside each row. The vegetables were easily harvested from either side, and we never had to worry about compacting the soil because we had no need to walk on it. There was room for strawberries and asparagus and peas and beans and beets and corn and beans and tomatoes and lettuce and spinach and radishes and all sorts of herbs and flowers, as well as winter and summer squash, zucchini, cucumbers, carrots, onions, garlic, potatoes and yams...... It was a dawn to dark garden, that's for sure.

This year's garden is going to look like an old lady's hobby, which it is! I pulled out my old copy of Rodale's Herb Book and our battered, much used Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening today and set to work plotting it all out on paper. I'll buy five tomato plants and three green pepper plants. The rest will grow from seed, a little bit of this and a little bit of that, with flowers and herbs scattered throughout, partly for looks but mostly because there are plants that like and encourage and protect one another. That's why it's called "companion planting".

Basil and borage protect tomatoes against that ugly tomato hornworm. Marigolds and nasturtiums planted all over the garden deter many bugs. Green beans are happy around dill and savory. Cucs & squashes taste better interplanted with oregano and marjoram. Pyrethrum flowers protect beans and can be made into a very effective bug-killer spray. Green beans like garlic, too. Caraway protects radishes. Chives like carrots. There is absolutely no need to buy anything to kill the bugs, because they don't come around when you companion plant.

Truth time... I gave up on growing broccoli and cabbage and cauliflower because I never found anything that kept the worms out... Yuk! ...and I tried the entire spectrum of organic deterrents from mint to red pepper spray. I have to admit that there is no magic bullet, but companion planting works well for the most part, and it makes gardening kind of friendly and cozy, thinking about all these compatible little plants :D


I'll put in a packet of cosmos, too, because when I first experienced those lovely, free and airy blooms a couple years ago, it was like discovering I had a new best friend!