New garden plan

I built the raspberry bed last fall.  For my garden this was a premium bed, with edges made of landscape stone instead of wood.  I recently read that raspberries should not be planted near crops that get wilt.  Last year my tomatoes had wilt really bad, and now growing raspberries in this bed close to the rest of the vegetable beds doesn’t seem like such a great idea.

 

 

Now the raspberries will go in the bed on the slope toward the pond, on what I think of as no-man’s land because it is mostly bereft of topsoil, flanked by the two apple trees in front of it (yep, way down there).  This bed was made by driving three stakes and fastening long 2x4’s to the stakes, then piling soil on the high side of the stakes.   It was planted in winter squash last year and I was planning to put sweet potatoes there this year.   It’s not as close to the pond as it looks in the picture.   

 

That leaves the “nice” stone-lined bed, which will now get a planting of asparagus at one end and some perennial herbs at the other.  This year the middle will be planted in sweet potatoes.  In future years the bed will mostly be planted in short season crops – carrots, scallions, beets, bush beans, and experiment with new vegetables.

Here is the revised plan – raspberry bed not shown.  On paper I had to rotate the new bed 90 degrees to make it fit.  It’s only a plan for the first planting, and while crops like tomatoes, peppers, parsnips, pole beans, sweet potatoes and winter squash will occupy their spaces most of the season the brassicas, carrots, beets, onions, bush beans and so forth all come out at some point and something new goes in.  I never make plans for the second plantings, having found it’s a waste of my time because you know what they say about the best layed plans.  I make those decisions when the space opens up.  It’s much easier that way.