My COVID-19 garden

[Kaleva]

With the current and expected interruptions in the food supply chain and the arrival of the stimulus money, my wife has agreed to allow me to accelerate my plans for the garden.

My plan is to convert much of the back yard which lies east of the home into a garden and fruit orchard.

An issue with the back yard is that the property is on a slope and the back yard can remain wet for sometime before it's dry enough to plant. So I decided to build some raised beds and make raised rows but the way I was doing that, it would have taken me several years to complete the vegetable garden and I'm already 61.

The vegetable garden will be a fenced in 48' x 48' lot (2304 square ') and it will contain a total of 1215 square feet of planting area in raised beds and raised rows. I already have the raised beds made a couple of years ago and yesterday I ordered 12 cubic yards of screened topsoil at a cost of $26 a cubic yard delivered to make half of the raised rows. Later this year after the east half of the garden area has dried out, I'll order another 12 cubic yards to complete the rest of the raised rows.

Last week I bought 8 8' steel fence posts to be used as center pieces for teepees made with 8' saplings and they'll be used for sugar snap peas and pole beans. Living where I do, I have easy access to as many 8' saplings as I'll ever need.

To the east of the vegetable garden will be a 34' long raspberry bed. A friend of my wife's will give us the raspberry plants when the raised bed is ready. To the south of the garden will be an orchard for semi-dwarf apple, peach and pear trees but that's a project for another time as I have to put in a 10W'x40L'x12H" raised bed for that. To the north of the house that gets plenty of sunshine and the lawn is dry, I have space for 2 cherry trees.

A family member has 2 round bales in his field which he says I can have and which I'll use for mulch in the garden to limit weed growth.

This year I'll be planting radishes, carrots, beets, dwarf sugar snap peas, cabbage, tomatoes, peppers, sugar snap peas and pole beans. I have enough radish, carrot and beet seeds on hand to try for a spring and fall crop.