Garden Party

Well, maybe not so much a party...
But that garden is well on its way and we're enjoying it so far. Of course the spring planting fever time is always fun. The July weeding time is the not so fun part!
I started by tilling up a couple of rows last week and planting beets, carrots, and radishes. I only worked two rows because every inch was a struggle with the tiller. I finally gave up and did most of it with a shovel. Orrin bought it from Craigslist and I figured it was just difficult to use, or I wasn't strong enough. Orrin returned home from Ireland and tried to till the next row for me and decided that the tiller wasn't working the way it was supposed to, took apart the gear box, if that is the appropriate terminology, and found one of the gears totally mangled and missing about half its teeth. So he ordered a new one, which came yesterday, and the tiller was back in working order today.
We had this idea to just till up the backyard, and leave the grass already there in place for paths, and to make it a little decorative we're laying it out in a pattern like an English formal garden. Except instead of boxwood and roses it's beets and broccoli. That's Silas and Orrin hard at work measuring and staking out the plots. There will be four triangles in the center there with an X shaped path in the middle. The row to the right is the potato patch- consisting of ten trash bags set 1 foot down into the ground. The row on the left will be peas. I'm hoping to find some nice decorative fencing to let them climb up, maybe some old iron bed headboards or something?
Then there are two more rows running hidden by the roof, and there will be two more rows behind Silas, running east west. I'm hoping that will be enough space. The vining plants, melons and squash, will be in a patch behind the playground, and the sweetcorn will be on the other side of the garage.
I'm excited to try growing the potatoes in the bags. I've never grown potatoes before, but Mom found this method so we're giving it a try. I think it will make for easy harvesting, no losing potatoes or chopping them up with your shovel, just slit the bag and out they tumble. We dug a trench in which to set the bags, both to give us some soil to fill the bags, and to make it look a little less like someone just dropped trash bags on out lawn. I have to admit it felt a little sinister with a shovel, dirt and all the black plastic. We put 4 or 5 seed potatoes in each 42 gallon contractor bag. The contractor bags are supposed to be thicker and sturdier, so we thought they might be a better choice. Once the sprouts appear we'll unroll the bag and keep piling the dirt on top, instead of the traditional hilling. This year we're growing Yukon Gold and All Blue varieties. So we'll be able to have University of Michigan potato salad this fall. Silas and Emmet also planted s University of Minnesota variety at the Landscape Arboretum last month that are already growing well.
Silas helped me put in some Walla Walla onion sets, spinach seeds, and the cabbage seedlings on Sunday. We planted sunflowers along the fence this evening.
Things seem to be moving right along on our micro-farm. Except, the ducks are moulting, which means we haven't gotten a single egg in about 4 days. I'm down to my last two! I hope they start laying again soon because I don't want to have to resort to buying eggs!