This week in a NY garden - Week 2

Week 2 - January 7-13

Weather - 30 degree's blue skys

This week at Irish Gardens it's time to map out the garden plans against last years gardens and what seeds we have on hand.  For me I took this survey that was done of the house in 2009 and added the gardens.

Now you can see all the little gardens that make up Irish Gardens.  You don't have to have a map like this but I like to because it helps me plan things.  Like for instance I know that the sun travels from left to right along the top of this map so all (mostly all) of the gardens in the top half of the map will have 6+ hours of sun every day.  

Next I take each garden (by name-as they have all been named) and focus on them one at a time.

Like this one circled is the Greenhouse garden....so named as it is the greenhouse.  I take each one and make a more to scale diagram of it like this......

Each square on this map is = to 1 square foot.  I mark on the map where the perennial herb crops are and now I know how much space I have left in the greenhouse to plant other crops.  I save these each year so that I can look back and see what worked and what didn't.  

Now that I have the greenhouse garden mapped out I can plan on what I want to grow in there.  

Take lots of pictures of your gardens each year and you'll be able to remember better what worked and what didn't as well as be able to visualize your garden in bloom.  

So this week this is what we will be working on....marking the perennial crops and begin planning the annual ones.  What will you be working on in your garden this week?

How my gardens have changed.

It seems every year I add a new garden bed to my collection. I am not saying this is a bad thing as if I add a new one that means that I was able to handle last years load.  Now when I say add a new garden I usually mean for edibles......but this year it wasn't just 1 new garden it was 3.....Take a look

2009:  Lets start when we bought the house.  The front yard had minimal gardens...but some

 Here there is no Butterfly bush garden or my boarder garden full of Iris

 The poor Pussy Willow in a small little circle....

The back of the house where the greenhouse is now.....certainly makes the yard look bigger with out it.

 And the kitchen garden....a cleaned up version of it but this is the shape it was in....


That brings us to 2010:  Where the first of many new gardens were added to the yard.

 The beginnings of my blog started right here with my greenhouse.

 Later that same year this is the completed greenhouse and extension garden growing away.

The kitchen garden got a bit of a make over.

Then comes last year 2011:  Where gardens were added again and some were given new life....like

 Yup the kitchen garden again....a new flower bed area was added and the rest was straightened out a little more.

 The now bigger Pussy Willow tree now has it's very own shade garden....granted it provides the shade.

 Hard to see but here is the Iris boarder garden just after it was added.....

 Unhappy with the first try the Kitchen garden had more added to it....now I could harvest all of the garden.

 Then back by the Greenhouse the Strawberry mint garden was added.....sorry Strawberry Chocolate Mint garden.

 As was what became known as the vine garden....

   Another view of the Greenhouse for reference  as here comes 2012:  This year.....

The first of the gardens to be added this year.  One for the gardening class and one for Shannon.

 Remember back in 2009 that picture of the front yard with the Forsythia on the left?  Well to the right of that is now this guy....the Butterfly Bush garden.

Oh and that Boarder garden back from 2011 the one I promised was full of Iris.....well here it is.

And finally the last of the gardens built so far this year was added on to the new one at the back of the greenhouse.  One has plants for Aiden guy and the others are some of the veggies.

So my gardens have changed a lot over the last few years.  I imagine they will continue to change not only in what is planted in them but in how they look in general....then again I hope not too much....hard to name the gardens when they keep changing.

Using layouts

Everyone has their own way to keep track of their seedlings.  A way of knowing that this day they were sown, this day they were germinating, and so on.  Developing your own way is important but sometimes for the new gardener they aren't sure what to keep track of.  Here is how I do it.

Here is a picture of one of me seedling trays.  As you can see I don't have any labels but lots of seedlings.  The arrow at the top is my way of knowing what side is what.

You may have to expand this picture to understand it but this is the layout for the seedling tray.  I have it named so I know which tray it is, in case I have more than one tray that have the same cells.  I also have the date in which the seeds were sown.  Each square represents one cell and has a number assigned to it.  Below the diagram I have each type of seed listed by their number.  You can see that the first row is all 1's and there for using the "legend" it is marigolds.  Many of the squares also contain a date now.  Some more than one.  Each date is the day a seedling appeared.  Some have a date and a x2 next to it.  Meaning that day 2 seedlings appeared in that square.  I know it seems silly to explain that but it helps me keep track of how long it takes each seedling to emerge.  Some were consistent and all started showing with in days of each other and some have yet to even emerge.

Using this chart and date method allows me to keep track of not only how long it took for each seedling to emerge but as they don't all grow at the same rate allows me to use the information to plan the garden better.  I can also use the information and see how viable the seeds are.  If some of the seeds were harvested from my garden I know which are good or not.  If they were purchased and are a few years old then I can see if they are still good.  

It's also interesting to see that though 5 cells were planted with marigolds 1 cell doesn't have seedlings yet, but they call came from the same package. 

When the seedlings get transplanted I simply cross out the cell they were in.  I usually like to keep the sheets so that I can use them in following years as a guide.  These seedlings worked well in this type of container or these didn't.  Things like that.  

It's important to have your own way of logging events.  You may not care when the seedlings emerge just when they harvest.  Or when the first true leaves appear.  But as long as you keep some sort of log you will have something to help you in following years.  

Layouts and Seed packets

Here are links to a few layouts and seed packets that I have made.  If you would like one custom made just let me know and I will see what I can do.  Not many now but as I get requests or come up with more I will up date the links.

After having issues with the other links I have uploaded the documents to another site.
Living Eco Friendly

The actual page where you can find the seed packets and layouts are here

Just something to help out gardeners when planning.

Do you have some packets or layouts you would like to share?  Let me know and you can add them to the site if you want.