Growing With Jas: 2021 Spring & Summer Garden Plans

Hello! Welcome to Growing with Jas. This series is my way of sharing what and how I’m growing this seasons including my fails, lessons learned, solutions, plans, and results. I’m a firm believer in documenting your journey and this is another avenue for doing so.

Disclaimer: this article is posting later than I would want. Typically, this article will go live at the beginning of the season and a follow up will go live right at the end of the growing season. Because of this, I’ll be referring to some of the harvests and observations I’ve made so far, but in the future this type of article would be a discussion of my garden plans and goal. Also, I’ll give some background information so you can understand my grow space. This article will flow as you typically would during a garden walk through.

My growing space includes 9 raised garden beds. 4 beds are 4 ft wide 6 ft long 14.5 in tall. we built these beds from scratch using cedar wood. Two beds are 4 ft wide 8 ft long 17 in tall. We purchased these beds online because at the time, wood prices drastically increased and it was more practical to purchase a ready to install bed versus DIY. One bed is an elevated 4×6 bed that is filled with perennial bulbs. One bed (aka the shed bed) is 2 ft wide 8 feet long 10 in tall. We also purchased this bed online as well. My last bed is a Subpod grow bundle. It houses our vermicompost system. Our current garden space is two years old – prior I’ve been growing in a large container garden.

What I’m Growing This Season

Here’s our current set up and this spring and summer we did not use bed 6 (ran out of soil).

PEPPERS

I have peppers in bed 1, 2, and the shed bed.

• Yellow bell peppers
• Purple bell peppers
• Candy stripe bell peppers
• Caribbean habanero peppers
• Bishop’s crown peppers
• Peruvian yellow chili pepper

TOMATOES

• Red beefsteak tomato
• German queen tomato
• Cherokee purple tomato
• San marzano tomato
• Super sweet cherry tomato
• Sweet million cherry tomato
• Sun sugar cherry tomato
• Cape gooseberry

EGGPLANTS

Black Beauty

CUCUMBERS

Lemon cucumbers

Spacemaster cucumbers

(NEW) HERBS

Anise hyssop

Toochache plant

Blue monday clary sage

Anise hyssop

Korean mint

SQUASH

Early yellow straightneck

Table queen acorn squash

BEANS

Blue lake bush beans

Cowpeas

Scarlet runner beans

Methods I’m Using

Trellis – I am using a cedar lattice supported by two t post to support my cucumbers and scarlet runner beans. I choose this method so I can easily remove the trellis and rotate crops each season. I didn’t add a traditional arch trellis because am not expecting long vines. I decided to grow a compact variety of cucumbers (spacemaster) and plan to “top off” the lemon cucumbers when they get too long.

My tomatoes, eggplants, and crackerjack marigolds are being staked using bamboo sticks. This is so affordable. accessible. and easy to use.

3 Lessons I’ve Learn From Last Growing Season

Grow More Flowers

Flowers play a plethora of roles in a garden, but for my space personally, my lack of flowers hit me in 3 areas – beauty, pollinators, & companion planting.

BEAUTY – Flowers are not only beautiful to look at, they possess the ability to make you feel good. Because of this, they are a really good “buffer” to enjoy while you patiently wait for vegetables to mature.

POLLINATORS – Luckily, my shed is filled with carpenter bees, I don’t know how I would of made it through the gardening season without the added pollinators that flowers bring around. I’ve drastically noticed an increase in a diverse amount of pollinators in the garden since adding more flowers.

COMPANION PLANTING – Like I mentioned before, flowers are multiuse. They can repel unwanted pests, lure away certain pests (trap crop), add nutrients to the soil, and boost yield and flavor. There was so much information (some conflicting) on which flowers did what, I decided to read up on this book and it help solidify which flowers I was going to add. I can honestly say I choose my flowers based on this hierarchy:

1. Companion planting use (repel pests and increase flavor to companion)

2. Visual pleasure/color

3. Easy seed access and saving.

SOLUTION – I added a TON of flowers to the garden beds and hanging pots. The beauty alone has been so rewarding. I’ve become extremely fond of marigolds and their diveristy in vareity. Crackerjack marigolds (I grew from seeds I purchased at the dollar store) are nearly 3 feet tall and are drop deead gorgeous. I am also swooning over the fireball varity which is a petite variety with firery red and orange tones. The mission giant will more than likely become a favorite as well, but I am still awaiting for them to bloom. Here are all of the marigold varieties I am growing this year and whether I grew them from seeds or purchased starts:

• Crackerjack – seeds
• Fireball – nursery (here are some seeds if you want to try them out)
• Eskimo – seeds
• Little Gem – seeds
• Mission Giant – seeds

I also added the following flowers:

• Candy stripe cosmos
• Luminosa zinnias
• Giant violet queen zinnias
• Globe amaranth
• Variegated nasturtiums
• Borage
• Red strawflowers

Don’t Over Prune – Especially My Tomatoes

Problem – Last season, I planted 20 tomatoes and harvested ONLY 4 tomatoes. Blight destroyed all of my tomatoes and I truly believe it was because I was over pruning them. I attempted to try the “single stem” method which resulted in constant pruning.

SOLUTION – I planted a combination of green onions, garlic, mammoth basil, and borage in my main tomato bed and I am allowing them to grow freely with the exception of trimming dead and the bottom leaves so they won’t touch the soil and transfer any soil borne diseases. Also, trimming the bottom leaves allow for air circulation to take place. Adding mulch to the beds definitely helped with keeping that issue at bay and keeping the soil consistently moist as well. You can read more about my experience with mulch here.

Grow a Garden Centered Around Itself – Not Me

This lesson manifested in different areas of my garden. Yes, what I decided to plant in my garden is based on what my family and I want to eat, BUT what I mean is that my perspective on how my garden runs and operate is not centered around me. I don’t immediately result to mechanical interference when I see pests or I don’t solely depend on synthetic fertilizers or amends because it’s easier for me. I always consider my garden and its mini ecosystem first. I’m feeding the soil so in turn it feeds us. The increase in productivity is proof that this perspective is working.

Stay tune in Aug 2021 for my fall gardening plans and my recap on how this plan worked out. Happy Planting!