Planning the Garden – 2014

I walked around my yard this weekend during the one hour or so of sunshine, and it was wonderful.  I brought a notebook and pen, and thus begins the planning of my spring and summer growing spaces.

I want to plant ALL THE THINGS, but I have to be realistic.  I work a regular 9-5 job, and I share a vehicle with my mate, and well, to make a long story short, some days I am not at home during daylight hours at all.  This means that I need to dial it back and plant smarter, not MORE.

Things to consider this year:

“Put Honeysuckle Here”

Fencing

Even though we aren’t living in town, we are close enough to other people and roads and such that we don’t have a ton of deer or rabbits eating up our garden.  However, our neighbor’s goats have been Houdini-ing their way out of their yard regularly. I don’t mind them pruning all of the honeysuckles, but not my irises or baby trees or herbs!

I’ve been eyeballing our trampoline “skeleton” and I’m thinking of making a greenhouse out of it. More about that later.

Watering

I have seen plants suffer from lack of water during those really dry, hot days.  I need to sort out some irrigation methods for the plants that won’t live in the “greenhouse-to-be” so that they aren’t miserable…

We also have a big blue barrel with a few little holes in it that we want to patch up and add a spigot and screened cover to for rainwater collection. While we get a lot of rain, there are feast and famine stretches for sure, and that barrel could save us water and money alike.

Pests

We’re pretty lucky – we haven’t had any pest issues.  We do well to keep bird food out to keep them around the yard and nibbling on buggies, and with the deep freezes that Asheville has had this winter, ticks and skeeters might not be so heavy as they have been.  I’m hoping that growing potted vegetables in the “greenhouse-to-be” will help with the blight that takes our ‘maters every single year.

The next step is to build the greenhouse and see what can fit in there, and then seed-starting begins in earnest. I’ll post more as those plans get underway!

What are you doing in your garden?  What projects are you planning this year?