Vegetable Garden Construction

JD and I opted out of having a vegetable garden last year - which turned out to be a good thing considering our Sturgis adventure. This year I decided to give it a shot. I wasn't sure that the area where JD had had a garden in previous years was getting enough sun so we tried a new location in the middle of the property near the orchard.

The downside to the area is that it's pretty gravelly and in fact, the area in the middle where the old house used to be is thickly covered in large rocks so we decided to build several garden boxes (which we probably would have done anyway). I'm planning to build a greenhouse eventually and I think those large black rocks will be a good base for it - they'll allow for good drainage and hold some heat, too. JD is gradually scraping those back for me to where I want to locate the greenhouse.

Two sides were already fenced well enough but the other sides needed some attention. And all four sides needed something to deter deer. We installed fencing on one side, repaired and supplemented the other and installed extensions around the top. I used several pieces of PVC (salvaged from a duck blind JD had built several years ago but no longer used) and some conduit we found in the barn. I attached these to all the t-posts and fence posts and ran three rows of wire around the perimeter to a height of eight feet.

We rearranged the garden boxes a little, filled them up with lovely new four part compost and started planting.

Clockwise from top left: potatoes, beefsteak tomatoes and cilantro, tomatoes and basil, pear tomatoes

Pickling cucumbers and peppers:

This box ended up being a little crowded with parsnip, dill, carrots, onions, tomatoes and one beet:

Near the back side of the garden is a raised area with a rock wall. In the middle is a hazelnut tree and another unidentified tree. It makes for a nice little shady sitting area. After extensive weeding, I'll plant flowers on the wall and the upper area.

These photos were taken in June. The garden got off to a very slow start but is has picked up in the last month to six weeks. I even got one tomato last week!