On Tuesday May 17th, we planted our first stuff in the north garden. We got in 3 different varieties of carrots and some melons on the western edge of the bed. On Wednesday we got in some tomatoes, and on Thursday we planted 160 corn plants, of 2 different varieties. We will continue to plant more and more fruits, veggies and other plants to help turn the old parking lot from an expanse of gravel and trash into a space of sustainable permaculture, learning from our mistakes and letting you know what we learn, so you can experiment too.
Where we planted our carrots we learned that transferring ideas from paper to dirt is not always as straight forward and easy as we imagined it would be. We intended to plant carrots, onions and lettuce together in successive rows, as a companion planting. However what seemed like proper spacing on paper, just didn't turn out when we went to actually apply that to the garden. Now we are redesigning the other two 15 foot sections of that middle row of the north bed to properly fit what we want to experiment with there. Now we will have some trials in both companion planting and what we are now calling our "Carrot Chaos" bed, to see how the different varieties of carrots do in comparison to the ones that are planted along side the onions and the lettuce. Do the companion plantings really have a substantial advantage to an area of mono crop? Only time will tell!
Here are some good downloadable PDFs on companion planting from ATTRA, The National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service: Companion Planting Downloads
Also, here are some time lapses of our planting and planting preparations:
3 Sisters Mound Building
First Planting
Midnight Melons
Candy Corn Plant
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