Past two years I’m trying to make vegetable beds and gardens all over the yard, using every single free space. The idea is to be able to grow enough vegetables for an entire year. I know that I’m far from this, but every new space helps out a bit.

Side Garden Now A Bean Garden

Last year I started a new side garden. This garden is specific because of its location. It is the closest area to the forest, and I’m still trying to figure out which vegetables can grow here. Last year I learned that this is not a good spot for heat-loving vegetables. Although the year was extremely hot, the lack of sun made all the fruits very sour.

Beans on the other hand love it here. This is why this year this garden is mostly a bean and pea garden. Out of 5 beds only 1 bed has different types of vegetables. The chard and parsley bed is the only bed without beans. The rest of the beds have beans, peas, and broad beans. I do have some lettuce between the beans, but still, the majority of the side garden is covered in beans.

And this seems to work. The beans are doing great. Broad beans are ready for harvest, purple peas are slowly filling up the pods, and even bush beans are coming along nicely and starting to flower. Of course, the weather will determine if the beans will like the summer here, but judging from the growth so far, this will be a great bean spot.

Test Veggie Beds in Orchard

Orchard on the other hand is not that great space for beans. This year I’m making a small test garden in the orchard. These are actually more separate beds with different vegetables to see how they act. I have to say I’m pretty pleased with their growth.

The shaded area is now home to lettuce and onions. Both are growing well, despite the enormous amount of weeds. This bed was deep dug during late autumn and I didn’t have the chance to prepare it properly in spring. I’ve started sowing without cleaning the bed completely and now I have a forest of plants in one small bed. It’s hard to find onions, but they are here.

The other two beds were completely ready. This spring we purchased a small electric harrow, and after deep digging and harrowing, the soil was completely ready for planting. This part is divided into two parts and here I have some test lentils, beets, tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers.

Very Dry Spot

What I noticed almost immediately is that the location where these two beds are is actually the sunniest and the driest in the entire garden. Although I always thought that the sunniest part is the two western garden beds, it turns out that this part gets even more sun. I’ve noticed that the soil here dries the fastest and the plants here germinated quicker.

This brings me to the conclusion that this spot will be great for tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and zucchini next year. The only problem I have here is that this part is very wind exposed, which was perfectly visible on the tomatoes during the May cold. The seedling here were completely blue from the cold, but they also recuperated faster than the ones in the main garden.

Plans for Orchard and Side Garden

Next year’s plan is to make a full and real garden here in the orchard. The empty area is huge, almost the size of the entire main garden. As soon as I remove all the wood we chopped, and free the area, I will start deep digging it slowly. It will take a long time, but it’s better to dig before harrowing. The soil looks much better prepared.

There will also be a big potato bed, which I still haven’t figured out how I’ll make. Digging the part next to the fence will take me too much time, so maybe I’ll just cover the soil with something to stop the weeds from growing and plant the potatoes in the hay next year. One thing is certain, my garden is getting bigger soon.