I am finishing up my garden plans for the shade garden. I am using the square foot method to plant densely and (hopefully) maximize the space available for food production. Now it's just a matter of figuring out which variety of each vegetable will go in each slot. This small 9.75 x 4 foot garden will have:
1 Coriander/Cilantro plant
1 square of mustard greens (I'm not sure how many to plant in the square)
1 Brussels Sprout plant
8 Kale plants
54 Spinach plants
2 Collards
24 Lettuce plants
80 Radishes
80 Carrots
36 Beets
More onions/scallions than I'll know what to do with
The mustard plant(s), Kale, Collards, some of the Spinach, some of the onions, and the Brussels Sprout plant will be from the winter sown collection. The rest I plan to direct seed.
My neighbor, trying to be helpful, keeps suggesting flowers and decorative plants that I could put in the yard. She's thrilled that I've decided to garden, but doesn't seem to understand that our gardening is largely for food. The few flowers we plan to have are typically medicinal, herbal, or offer some sort of insect attraction or repellent to better the food crops. I'm trying to learn about companion planting, but there's so much information, and some of the places I've looked offer opposing information. This may be a "learn as we go" experiment - which is fine by me. I love that style.
Of course I'm leaving the tulips and iris plants to grow as they wish. I've tried to remove the grass from that area with very little luck. In other news, has anyone else heard that Creeping Charlie is edible?
Anyway, it looks like Saturday is going to be the next nice day (dry and warm), so perhaps that's when I'll work on the shade garden and getting things planted.