And this year it holds special significance since we’ve been
unable to have a garden for the last few years.
Our canning pantry is in dire need of restocking and our bodies are
craving pickled beets, pickled asparagus, fried okra and fresh homegrown
tomatoes!
This year we finally found a few minutes to set up our
greenhouse and cover it with some poly.
If it works out (and early indications look positive) we’ll cover it in
subsequent years with a more permanent hard panel system and install venting,
watering, etc.
We’re still using a raised bed system in the garden and all
the beds are now set up with independent irrigation spigots that run drip
irrigation. We can then alter the drip
emitters or install drip tubing or small bed sprinklers based on what we put in
each bed.
I’ve already got the first row of “cool weather crops in the
ground here and the irrigation is set.
This photo shows the simplicity of my system. The incoming water usually comes from
irrigation, but since it’s not on yet for the season I have it running on city
water for now. That line plugs into a
timer which feeds a manifold that supplies water to each tap at the beds. Eventually I will install a multi-zone timer
so I can run water at the beds at differing lengths of time, but for now this
system works pretty well.
On our menu this year:
In the ground already – carrots, beets, kale, radishes, snow
peas
In starter trays in the greenhouse – tomatoes (lots of
varieties), peppers (even more varieties), okra
To be planted later (May) – beans, cucumber, lettuce,
pumpkins, melons and probably more!
But this year – NO ZUCCHINI!
I’m sure we’ll still end up with enough zucchini so choke the pig!
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