Last year we decided that our yard didn’t have enough room for all the stuff we wanted to plant, and still have some yard. We decided to get the garden at my parents house back in shape. This year it has expanded (to about 60′x60′)and we are growing more densely.

Our first change was to move our bean production to our home garden. Beans require too regular picking to keep up with when the garden is a half hour away. We added potatoes this year (4 varieties-including blue), so far they seem to be doing great. In the past (before I can remember) my folks had problems with potato bugs. We will see how it works out. We are doing almost all our tomatoes at home because of tomato worms. We haven’t had problems at home, but they decimated the plants at my folks. We have also planted two quarts of onion sets one yellow and one red. The potatoes and onions are so reassuring to see after planting seeds for the other stuff. It is nice to see foot tall plants.

Another cool thing we are trying is the 3 Sisters method of co-planting beans, corn, and squash in mounds. Right now they look like dirt moguls on flat ground with small corn shoots coming out of the top.

We spent the afternoon yesterday mostly weeding. I also planted a third phase on carrots. Phase 2 is just peeking out and phase 1 are a few inches tall and also got weeded over the weekend.