John Andrews Gardening Thoughts

I built four vegetable patches on the lawn this spring. These are just simple frames made of three 2x4x8 boards. One is cut in half for the two ends. These were staked at the for corners on the lawn with enough room to run the riding mower around them. The stakes prevent accidental movement of the frames. The lawn was covered with newspaper at least 4 pages thick and overlapping. Then I added five bags of pinebark fine mulch or soil amendment to each frame to fill it up. Later I added climbing frames made similarly using 2x2x8 boards and plastic chicken wire mesh for the cucumbers to climb on. The mulch and newspaper stopped the grass from growing. (Burmuda grass is very persistant, though and is finally comming thru.) In the spring I planted sets of squash, cabbage, tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. The plants went down into the soil under the paper. I fertilized using Miracle Gro and other 13x13x13 fertilizer.

Now we are overwhelmed with zuccini and yellow squash and the tomatoes are heavy! We got a good crop of cabbages and a few small heads of the red cabbage. Only one pepper so far. Some cukes. It is only the 4th of July, so more is comming.

Yesterday I took out all the cabbages remaining in one plot and planted sweet corn on one-foot centers with three seeds in each hole and a handfull of fertilizer. This should be up in 68 days. Look for sweet corn on Sept 19th.

In retrospect, I should have used Round-Up early on in the beds to kill the bermuda grass and I should have used it around the edges to keep stuff from creeping in. The climbing nets should be set into the area about one foot, not on the edge. Then the cukes will climb straight up the fence. I had to guide each plant and tie it up to make them start climbing on the outside where they are accessible.