Right in My Own Backyard A Cornwall gardening experience: Right in My Own Backyard

Well, I'm getting ready for the new season. Today my Honey went out and got some fencing so that we can keep the mutt out this year, - I think she ate more from the garden than we did - and on the 9th I started some seeds in egg cartons and painstakingly charted out my garden plan.

What I've got going so far are 3 varieties of tomatoes, cantaloupe, green and red peppers and broccoli. If I can avoid having to buy too many plants this year, I'll be happy. They seem inexpensive enough on the surface, but by the time you get all the plants you need, you've shelled out a pretty penny.

I'm wondering though if I should've planted the broccoli. Last year it took so long to start, (and I ended up with no broccoli at all) I thought maybe it'd be best to start them inside, but as you'll see in the pictures, it's really going like gangbusters, and I'm a little nervous it'll get too big for the egg carton before I can plant them outside.   When we came back from getting the fencing, we found that the ground is still pretty frozen about 10cm down; plus the yard is like a swamp, so it'll be a while before we can start setting anything up.

Now, I still have my reservations about the kind of earth I have in the garden. That may have been my broccoli's problem last year; it's so heavy and tightly packed that I think some things have a harder time than others growing in that type of soil. What I have in the egg cartons is potting soil which is so much lighter. I can't afford to swap it out, but I'm hoping to be able to get enough of the black earth to mix into it so that it changes the composition some.   The carrots were packed in there so tightly that I pulled the tops right off trying to get them out. I ended up using my little weeding tool to dig them up. And then, I found they were a lot shorter than what they were supposed to be. Again I guess it was just too hard for them to go deep. The beans didn't do too badly, but still, I think they could do better with lighter soil.

I'm going to give the square foot thing another go this year. I have the squares marked off in the chart but I don't know that I'll actually string it off like I did last year. I also marked how many plants per square, but that may end up being less because of the density of the ground; we'll see.

I'm doing the hanging buckets again too, but what I'll do differently this time is put potting soil instead of garden soil in the buckets. Last year they were so heavy that a few of the handles actually broke under the weight, and you saw what it did to my hanger at the south end. I might or might not use my long planters. I'm going to make a hanging planter of herbs so that when the season is over, I'll be able to just hang it up inside and still be able to use the herbs over the winter.