Having mentioned once or twice my obsession with starting our own vegetable, herb, and flower gardens, here I go again. Thoughts of growing our own food without having to worry about pesticides or GMOs has us going all out to discover how to grow as many of our own plants this year as possible even though we have a whole house to secure before next winter.
We have thought of keyhole gardens and they are delightful, but if we put raised beds around the yard, it is kind of the same thing. Yes, the back yard is overgrown, but if we put in raised beds we just have to remove the larger weeds or small scrub bushes and trees, toss down some of our cardboard moving boxes, load the beds, and we could be in the gardening business. Besides, I heard the soil is rather like clay and very damp… raised beds are the perfect solution!
Shortly after our arrival we plan to put raised beds along the fence where we will plant our raspberries along with turnips, which happen to be wonderful companions to turnips, garlic, and chamomile.
Why turnips you ask? We adore them! Planting turnips near our raspberries helps deter the Harlequin beetle. This year we are planting the Golden Globe organic turnip which is a firm, crisp, sweet round turnip with amber gold skin. The tasty tops can be used as greens and we can harvest them in about 55 days. Yummmm…
Garlic? Garlic is specifically recommended as a neighbor for raspberries to deter Japanese beetles. The sulfur in garlic acts as a fungicide for our raspberries. And, who knew? Garlic grown in New York is different from the kind found in grocery stores. New York has a “hardneck garlic”, which has a hard stalk running through the center of the bulb. Apparently, the flavor of hardneck garlic is considered stronger and has a different flavor than “softneck” garlic which we are used to buying. Have lived in the middle of the Pacific for forever… we have only had the “softneck grown on the West Coast and China. As we learn more about this different garlic, we will keep you updated… Who knows, we may encourage a demand for hardback garlic? And we will have five other types of garlic also…
Early Italian Purple produces larger cloves than most softnecks and grows better in summer heat…
Silver Rose is very fast growing with a mild flavor that happens to be great for braiding…
Inchelium Red was a national taste-test winner in the softneck division…
Italian Late is a very late maturing variety that then keeps exceptionally long. Perfect to extend our harvest time…
Nootka Red has a rich strong flavor that produces many cloves… and as a bonus…
And, enormous Elephant garlic which we are familiar with which has a milder, more mellow flavor…
Then we really must add some chamomile. Chamomile is derived from Greek word, “chamos”, which means ground, and “melos “ which means apple. Ergo, a plant that grows low to the ground and has fresh blooms with a pleasing apple scent that pests don’t like. There are two types of chamomile, German and Roman. We will be planting the Roman variety because it is a perennial and will be at home with the raspberries. Roman chamomile has a spreading habit (which is why it is in a contained box) and grows only about a foot high. Roman chamomile has white ray flowers which gives the appearance of little yellow buttons.
We could go on and on, and we will! As we plan each new raised bed for our garden we will update you. But, know that along with working on the house we will be talking a lot about our attempts at growing our own food…
