After getting all of my wood cut up into pieces and finally obtaining all the tools needed to put my garden bed together, of course the weather decided to step in and put a crimp in my plans by dumping several days of rain on us.
As I sat inside listening to the pitter pat of barely there rain, I reviewed the gardening books that I have and a few gardening websites. The main purpose of my garden bed was to grow tomatoes to can myself, since I am wary of tomatoes packaged with BPA in their linings. A quick review tells me that I will most certainly not be able to grow enough plants in a 4'X8' bed to keep us in tomatoes all year. And even if I could, I then shouldn't put tomatoes back in that bed for 3 more years (or crops, or something, I don't really get this whole rotation of the garden deal).
So after determining that I won't get enough tomatoes out of the bed, I decide that maybe I should dedicate more space to other stuff.....but what? And in what combinations? The more I read, the more confused and fuzzy I get.
Some books/websites recommend packing things in to get the maximum amount of stuff from your space. According to them, through staggering and interspersing you can plant things closer together than you could if you just had traditional rows of crops. Other books/websites recommend giving the plants lots of space. And then we get to the idea that some plants are great companion plants and are beneficial to each other, while some plants can cause the fruit of others to be less than desirable. Added to that, I have to take into account what I receive routinely from my CSA box weekly, and what my daughter will and will not eat and my head starts to hurt.
I finally arrive at a plan which includes a few tomatoes, peppers, herbs, eggplant and strawberry plants. I have a spot for spinach but I need to figure out if it will bolt on me our weather. I put the plan aside and just enjoy the rain for a bit.
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