Ready, set and GROW !

Ok, maybe not grow YET, but at least we can plan! The holidays are over, the seed catalogs have arrived (eventhough I'd rather do it online and skip all the catalogs piling up)...time to plan the garden! How do YOU garden? We use a raised bed system. One of the first things I did when we moved here was to build raised beds...and we've added to them since. I built

mine using 2"x12"x16' boards. We had to truck in dirt from a local organic farm which is a 50/50 compost mix, to fill them. There are many things about them that I like and some things I would do differently. I change the contents of each bed yearly, except for the ones that I have perennials in. These are a great size and deep enough to grow wonderful carrots in! I put up some pvc pipe and bent it so I can easily put up plastic or a row cover...mostly, it works well for us. What would I do differently?? Well, for one thing, I wouldn't have rushed and I'd have removed the ground base (grass). I'd have placed them closer to the house and put them closer together. I put a layer of landscape fabric underneath each one, but I attached it wrong and now have a handy crop of grass at times in some. I got smarter as I added more. In the latest bunch of beds, I actually has some old carpets and moved the soil bed, laid down the carpets and then did a double layer of weed block on the bottom of the raised bed frame before I filled them. MUCH better! We have two of these filled with strawberries (yum!) and two filled with raspberries, one with asperegus and one half filled with rhubarb. The rest are for veggies. Now, it's time to plan the garden for the year ahead. Each year, we try a new vegetable, one some of us have never had and some we haven't tried for years. Last year was the year of the turnip and ground cherry. Some years we find we have left overs from the year before, so we don't plant much of that item...this year we won't be having as many cucumber, only needing fresh for salads as our pickles are not moving like I thought they would. I found a new way to cook yellow squash that everyone likes, so I'll be growing more of those. With my list of what we like and need in hand, I'll be scouring the seed catalogs to select what we need. I like using FEDCO seeds, out of Maine. They have organic seed and the pricesare great. I focused on building my medicinal herbs last year, and I may add a few more to the mix. My husband loved flowers, I am more of a "can I eat it or heal with it?" type of person. I don't know what we will be growing for our "experiment" this year; but looking through the catalogs will surely make something grab my attention! One those seeds arrive, we will start most of them inside, since growing season won't happen until after Mother's Day here.