I'm starting out with a rectangular plot. There will be four varieties of heirloom tomatoes running in two rows from north to south taking up the entire west side of the garden area, with a total of 20 plants. I plan on using the Florida weave staking technique.

I've built two 4 feet by 4 feet raised beds, and have placed those in the south-east corner. I have very limited time to work on this, so I just got the garden tilled, leveled the box area as well as I could, and put the boxes directly on top of the regular soil (I do have good soil to start with), and then filled the box with organic top soil and organic peat. I would have rather had the time to sift the soil and do the rest of the stuff talked about in the SFG book, but I have a 2 year old and another on the way, and I'm doing this all myself, so I just don't have time. I've read that I can continue to build the soil from "the top down", so that is what I'm hoping will work for me!

One of those beds (the northern one) will be a modified three-sisters planting, with corn, beans, and squash. The squash will all be in a row on the eastern side of the bed, and will go up a cattle panel trellis, which will end outside of the garden (arching over the exterior walkway). The corn and beans will be in the remaining 3x4 space, intermixed to replace nitrogen for next year's crop. The southern bed will contain lettuce, carrots, eggplant, cucumbers, and potatoes. The cucumbers will take the southern row, and will also follow a cattle panel over the walkway and out of the garden.

Three more cattle panel trellis will be installed around the property (I have 3 acres), and each one will have it's own type of melon. Two trellis will have watermelons, and one will have a breakfast melon (for lack of a better term).

In the north east corner, there is a large, un-tillable (? well, that is what the guy who tilled it said - he said there were too many rocks) area, and it was only tilled down about 2-3 inches. I'm going to plant that entire area with Bee's Friend flowers, picking out the rocks as I go. I'm planning to save those seeds from this year, and then cover crop half of that area with winter rye. Then, next spring, I'll try to till the winter rye area under again, but leave half the area to replant the Bee's Friend flowers. I hope to eventually put three more 4x4 boxes in the north east side, and move the Bee's flowers to outside the garden area. Additionally, I'm hoping to build a top-bar hive this winter, and get a swarm of honeybees next spring to help pollination.

Finally, I'm keeping an eye out for a bottomless metal water trough to use for my compost bin.

Here's a list of what I'm growing. All of them are heirloom, and I got all of them from Seed Savers.

Bean -Climbing French
Carrot -Dragon
Corn -Country Gentleman
Cucumber -Snow's Fancy
Eggplant -Listada de Gandia
Lettuce -SSE Lettuce Mixture
Melon -Emerald Gem
Tomato -Hillbilly Potato Leaf
Tomato -Kellog's Breakfast
Tomato -Cherokee Purple
Tomato -Gold Medal
Watermelon -Blacktail Mountain
Watermelon -Criss Cross
Zucchini-Green -Black Beauty
Zucchini-Yellow -Golden Zucchini

Ok, that was a really long post. I'm so excited to get this going, and I hope to post lots of pictures to document the progress!

From left to right, the Bee's Friend flower patch and two 4x4 square foot gardening raised beds in the first row, then a 4x25+ row that will be planted with spring wheat, then the 5x25 foot row of cattle panel trellises for the tomatoes!

This is the 4x4 bed that is farthest south. It will be home to potatoes, lettuce, carrots, eggplants, and cucumbers. I still need to add the trellis that the cucumbers will grow up and out of the bed. It will also be a cattle panel trellis, like the ones the squash have in place. The dirt looks awful because I used the wrong type of peat on it. I'll be correcting that mistake as the crops rotate.

This 4x4 bed will have the modified three sisters planting. The squash and zuchinni will follow the trellis (seen a bit on the left) up and out of the bed, The remaining squares are planted with four corn each. After the corn has been sprouted for a week or two, I'll plant some climbing green beans among the corn.

This is a 6x10-ish plot of the bee's friend flower patch. I was trying to keep the dog off the spouts, so I tossed down two old, rusty spring frames. It seems to be working! I don't think you'll be able to see them at all once the flowers have grown up and bloomed.

Here is the east row. I'm still in the process of putting the weed barrier around the perimeter of the garden.

Here is the east row, plus you can see the middle row. The middle row is where I'll be planing the spring wheat. Mother Earth News just ran an article this spring about growing your own wheat, and it seemed like a good idea to try out on this otherwise unplanned for row. I certainly don't need any more veggies!

Here you can see the wheat row again, and more of the tomato row.

And here, dear friends, is my pride and joy... My row of 5 cattle panel trellises!!! I'll be putting a sheet of weed blocker down the middle of this row, and the row is 5 feet wide on the inside of the panels. This will support 20 heirloom tomato plants. You can see that the perimeter of the garden is still lacking its weed blocker paper stuff. Also, I'm looking into turning the tomato row into a hoop-house greenhouse during the winter months. Bonus!!!!

So far, the carrots, lettuce, potatoes, yellow squash, and zuchinni are all in the ground. All of the other plants, save the green beans, have been started indoors, and are all ready to transplant as soon as it is warm enough.

The garden area was planted last year, but the aisles were left in full sod, and all the rows were running east to west. So, I pulled up all of last year's remnants (the area was never put to bed for the winter - it was someone else's project), and burned the entire plot. Then, I had a man from down the road come till it for me. So, that is why it looks so rough. Plus, I really don't have a ton of time to work on this. I can get about 1.5 hours a day, if I get my little one in bed by 8. That's 45 minutes of daylight, 15 minutes of dark twilight, and then 30 minutes of gardening by flashlight. She's only 2, so it absolutely doesn't work to have her in the garden with me. She likes to pull everything out of the ground. *shakes head and laughs*

I did, by the way, obtain a used galvanized water trough off of Craigslist. The lady was even nice enough to bring it to my house when it wouldn't fit in my car! So, as soon as everything is planted, I'm going to get my compost bin started! The trough is in great shape, and even has a drain hole on the bottom. So, I'll have the option of adding a bit of water to my bin, and then draining off my own compost tea! Yeah!

Linda, I'm just a bit south of Des Moines. Are you nearby? I have another friend who grows a massive garden, and we're trading seedlings this year. If you'd like to get in on the trade, let me know! I have plenty of extra eggplants, and I may have a few other things left over, too.

FWIW - start thinking about your watering systems. If you need to run dripper hoses or have various upstands with taps for connecting handwatering hoses/sprinklers, think about where the lines will run, frost protection, and possible future extensions.

Think about safe dry foot access - and getting along those paths for either mowing in some way, or suppressing weeds. Particularly invasive weeds with runners.

I've no idea what your winds are like. Some sort of wind shelter may be useful. If you choose hedging be sure that whatever you plant doesn't have far-reaching roots. Let there be a walkway beside it for pruning and keeping the roots back from the growing areas.

Compost bins - give yourself three large ones. Make them easy to work for unloading and turning, and for adding bulky materials such as mulched leaves, manure, old hay or straw. Allow yourself plenty of room to use a barrow or small vehicle. Protect them from drying out by having some sort of cover to put over them.

Wheat, being a grass, might go better for you planted in its own plot, like corn. It will need proximity to other wheat plants so the wind-borne pollen has a better chance of reaching another plant.

For bee forage you might also consider buckwheat, if it grows in your area. And you can have the seeds!

You could add a herb patch, perhaps, out in the stony area: horehound, borage, Melissa, Agastache, Salvia, Thyme all make very interesting honey blends and could help your bees maintain vigour against Varroa and Sudden Collapse. Along with a water source that's safe for toddlers, too.

Think about a work centre for tools, raising seedlings, keeping chemicals and supplies safe from little busy fingers, potting up, cleaning produce before taking it into the house. Baskets and crates, seed-raising trays. And a fridge for the seeds.

If you are going to clear stones - is there the possibility of a drystone wall with crevice plantings?

For watering, I'm just going to use a hose with a sprayer attached for the 4x4 boxes (my hose is hooked up to well water, so I don't have to worry about chemicals harming the plants), and maybe two soaker hoses for the tomatoes.

For the wheat plot, I'm going to scatter the grain over the entire 4x20ish plot, not put it in rows. It's more of an experiment, anyway, so I don't really care if it does well.

I'll have to look into buckwheat!

Here in Iowa, we don't really have a lot of rocks. It's very weird that the tiller hit rocks in the first place. The rocks are smaller in size, bigger than pebbles, but much too small to build a rock wall. I would LOVE it if the rocks were big enough for a rock wall! Well, I'd love the potential, but not getting them out of the dirt!

I would like to eventually grow some herbs. Honestly, every time I've planted a kitchen herb garden, I've never used a thing from it. As I become more self-sufficient, I hope to grow and USE some fresh herbs. I will definitely keep your suggestions in mind for my bees, though! I want my little buzzers to be healthy!

I have a large garage, and I think I could covert one of the walls to a gardening hub. That's a great idea! There is already power out there, and I have some old windows that I could put into place for light for seedlings.

I see you are from NZ. I have a friend, from the States, who is down there teaching at University right now! Also, some of my favorite honey comes from NZ. :)

I'll take more pictures and update again soon. Thanks for watching!

Spring Wheat, Glenn
Lettuce, Anuenue - Summer Crisp, Green
Lettuce, Crispino - Iceburg
Broccoli, De Cicco - Standard (nonhybrid)
Bean, Hidatsa Shield OG
Bean, Good Mother Stallard
Brussel Sprout, Long Island
Beet, Bull's Blood
Beet, Chioggia

And, here are some photos that I took yesterday.

This cattle panel was curved into a hilly pattern. The side closest to us reaches to the ground, then curves up, then goes flat, then starts to cirve up again at the next single post, continues upward, and then curves back down at the last two posts. The watermelons growing here reach weights of about 15-20 pounds each, and that is considered to be too heavy for a regular arch. We're going to see if I can get the melons to grow on this configuration, since it is more supported than the other melon panels.

Another view of the melons with the curvy panel.

Here is Tomato Lane. The tomatoes are doing very well. Something has been chewing on them, but all the plants that were chewed on have recovered. The plants at the end are flowers. They lost their greenhouse flowers, and are working on getting their roots reestablished. I'm hoping for more flowers soon!

Here is the entire garden.

Columns, Left to right; Eggplant; carrots (north, with a few beets put in recently) and lettuce (south); lettuce (north) and carrots (south); cucumbers. I'm already harvesting the lettuce. I can take a few leaves from each plant in one square, and there are more leaves ready to harvest within two days! I am really looking forward to harvesting some carrots, too.

Here are the beans and corn, on the left side, and the squash (zucchini) on the right. I put a plastic mesh fence in between the squash and the others, because the squash leaves were starting to cover the smaller plants. It seems that the Three Sisters planting method intends for one to use winter squash, not summer squash. We'll see if this works anyway!

You can see the corn and beans better here, and the plastic netting to hold the squash at bay is more visible.

These are the first buddings of my Bee's Friend flowers. The flowers are coming from the pretty fern-looking plants. If they attract bees like they are supposed to, these will become a staple in my garden. They are very delicate looking, and the lacy, fern-like leaves are very pretty. In any case, I'll still plant them in flower beds, because they really are that pretty.

Here are the melon trellises. In the foreground is the Emerald Gem muskmelon, and in the background are the Criss Cross watermelons.

Here is the lone Rhubarb. It is located to the west of the melon trellises, and to the south of the Horseradish.

Here is the horseradish that was planted last year. It is already starting to spread, despite getting lost in the grass and getting mowed over a few times. Oops! Now it is mulched and has a tomato hoop around it to avoid mowing it again.

Be lavish with the compost/manure on the Rhubarb, if you can. And warn the kids about the leaves. Poisonous. Oxalic acid. It's easy to forget they don't know until told.

My favourite honey is thyme, then manuka, or bush honey. I like a dark and strong honey. Thyme honey makes a fascinating flavour for icecream.

I like any honey except for clover.

Here are some more pictures!

They make great windbreaks, too.

Plus apples and apricots...

(Friend of mine had to build a large enclosure around his blueberry patch to keep the feasting kids out - not the usual fruit munchers! Even the birds weren't as spry as the kids!)

The only thing I am disappointed in is the zucchini. I thought it was a vining variety, but it is bush type. I'm hoping that releasing it from the confines of the square foot box will help it become more productive. Also, the yellow zucchini keeps rotting on the vine. My friend thinks it is from all the rain we have gotten this year. I really hope production improves, as I have an awesome soup recipe that calls for 3-4 zucchini in each batch. It also calls for stewed tomatoes. So, I was really looking forward to freezing the zucchini and canning the stewed tomatoes, and then enjoying them all winter long.

Veti, I am planning on putting in blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries next spring. I already have 3 apple trees and two apricot trees. Both were on the property when I bought it, and both have been neglected. The apple tree set fruit this year, so I'll finally be able to find out what kind of apples they are! All of the trees need a major cleanup and pruning job.

I am out in the sticks, so the chances of roaming kids is very low. I don't mind if my helper grazes, though! She already loves sugared blackberries, so I imagine she'll be thrilled with picking them off the plant. :)

Otherwise, I have one project left for the summer. I have to figure out where to put my brussel sprouts and fall broccoli. I haven't decided if I'll build another SFG bed where the bee's friend flowers were (they went to seed already), or if I should put them right by the house, where they will receive partial shade. Any thoughts?

However, decent kiwi-grown sprouts are delightful. (:-D!) The commercial ones are grown in areas that get early frost and this really helps the flavour. Like kale.

Also, the usual need for mild sun - and being close enough to the house to let you be willing to scamper out to pick enough for the pot without getting your feet soaked.

If you have triple figures on the thermometer I can understand why you're choosing the shade, because they prefer cooler temperatures over the summer growing time. Does the sun shift round enough when winter comes to give you more light in the patch you have in mind? Could you use shade cloth - then raise it as the heat tapers off?

Plus reliable water, and whichever nitrogenous fertiliser you use - about eight weeks after planting out the seedlings. 'Keep 'em moving' - otherwise they'll be bitter and floppy. The bottom ones won't even be worth the effort to pick.

And keep a watch out for the two plagues of sprouts - white butterflies and aphids. Particularly the aphids. They make preparation for the pot a miserable affair. Ick! And floating row covers to keep off the butterflies. I'm sure they can smell a brassica from miles away.

It has been a rather bad year, in my personal life, so I haven't kept up with many of the plans I had, and even abandoned some that I had started. For example, the broccoli and brussels sprout seedlings I had started, well, they never got planted. I didn't do a fall crop for lettuce, and I didn't remember to get my sugar snap peas in, either.

Tomato Lane caught the blight, but I just figured out what it was, so I was unable to treat it early. It really didn't look like the pictures of blight, until this week. So, I'll be going to get something to treat it with tomorrow. It'll be late, but it's too late to pull up the plants to stop the spread, as the whole row has it. Thankfully, the blight has not made it onto the fruit, so I'm still bringing in a harvest. Also, the weather is dipping back down below 90, so the plants are starting to set flowers again. The trellises, by the way, are phenomenal. The plants are nearing the arch, and it's so cool to not have to worry about the plants falling over due to their height. Production has been awesome, and I've canned several jars of stewed tomatoes, and I've given a few of the tomatoes away to friends as well. This fall I plan to build boxes around each of the trellises. This will serve to both help in the eventual winter conversion to a greenhouse, and to keep a deep layer of mulch on the plants, and to help contain the soil. I'll also continue to treat for blight throughout the rest of this season, and all of next year, even if no symptoms are present. I'd like to try to get this stuff killed off. The marigolds went absolutely bonkers. I've never seen such huge marigold plants in my life! They are really doing their job, too. Hardly any of the tomato plants have been chewed on by bugs since the marigolds really took hold.

The wheat aisle experiment was a success, even if I didn't bring in the crop. I didn't take enough time and care to prepare the bed, so weeds overtook my wheat and made it impossible to harvest with any reasonable effort. So, I mowed the whole thing down and covered it with black plastic. This fall, I'll take the plastic up, build boxes over the entire row, and set fire to the interior. Then, I'll scrape it up, and set fire to it again. After that, I'll re-cover it with plastic until next spring. At that time I'll put down new dirt at a depth of 6 inches, and hope that the grass doesn't come back. So, no crop, but I learned a lot. Success!

The Bee's Friend flowers didn't attract very many bees. It may have been that the flowers weren't planted with enough density to attract them, but I don't know. I'm planning on replanting them next year, and making them more plentiful. Perhaps I'll throw them out in the surrounding field instead of the garden, though. In any event, that patch was mowed down and covered in black plastic as well. It will be developed in the same manner as the wheat row, with the exception that part of it will get turned into walkway.

The Emerald Gem muskmelons only produced one fruit per plant (user error?), and did not sprawl very much. I think they could be planted in the garden proper next year. Of course, they all ripened while I was out of town on business, so I did not get to try any of them. However, a friend of mine harvested for me while I was away, and he said they were wonderful. I'll plant some more next year!

The Criss Cross watermelons are doing fine, but have not yet ripened.

The Blacktail Mountain watermelons are also doing well, but have not yet ripened.

A volunteer squash plant came up by the back door, and it went nuts. I need to figure out what it is! Next year, I think I'll plant the watermelons up there, instead of on the trellises. I like the trellis, but it is a lot of work to keep the weeds out from it. Perhaps if I planted them in a box, rather than straight in the ground it would have been easier, but I think I prefer to not have to coax a plant to grow somewhere it really doesn't want to go. The tomatoes go wherever you push them, but the melons really do seem to have an opinion about where they want to be.

The zucchini did not do well at all. I thought they were a vine variety, but they weren't. So, they were immensely crowded, and did not yield much. To make things worse, I had several power failures this summer, so the crop that I had harvested, blanched, and frozen were all lost when the deep freeze defrosted.

The corn was planted too closely together. SFG says that you can put 4 per square, but I think that is too close. Perhaps two, but not four. The crop was dismal.
The beans are still growing, so it is unknown how the final result will be. I remain hopeful.

The eggplants have only set one fruit so far, and I am very excited to harvest it. I hope that the plants will set some more fruit, though. Its lack of production could probably be link directly to the soil. They are growing in the box where I got the soil mix wrong.

The carrots did great, and I have planted again for a fall crop. They are all coming up nicely.

The beets are planted for a fall crop, and they too look good.

The lettuce did great, but I did not replant for a fall crop.

The cucumbers are awesome. We've been making dill pickles 1-2 times a week, and have over a dozen jars now. It was my first attempt at pickles, and they turned out great! I will definitely keep this variety of cucumber in my garden.
As you can see, the cucumbers did not need the entire trellis to grow upon, so next year I am going to put some beans on the other side. I'll probably also interplant some peas in early fall, before the beans are ready to be planted.

At the trellis by the corn and squash, I will also plant beans next year. I'll probably just build little 1x4ft boxes around base not in the garden, rather than a full 4x4 box. I may expand in that direction eventually, but I doubt that I will next year.

For the wheat aisle and the Bee's Friend spaces, I'm not sure what will go there next year. I'm sure I'll have lots of fun dreaming up the schematic as the cold wind starts blowing and we get snowed in week after week!

Huge sympathy for the powercuts. There's nothing worse than watching hard work and thrift heading to the compost heap. If you have long hot summers - would dehydrating be an option for some of your produce(as in sun dried tomatoes, fruit leathers, etc.)?

Corn's a greedy grass. Chuck in the compost early, if the weather allows, and a reasonably high nitrogen fertiliser, if you use it. I'd agree with you. Six inches apart and thirty inches between the rows is probably better spacing.

Those marigolds are Magnificent! Do you get friendly moths on them at night, too?

One thing I know the bees seem to work quite a lot is brassica flowers, so, maybe, a patch of gone-to-seed cabbages, even radishes, will be useful for your bee population, particularly over a dry spell. Clovers are good, but they're not too durable in hot weather. Dandelions are also good, and hieracium - but they're both weedy and pesky. And Sedum spectabile for the autumn. Nearly invisible under a carpet of zonked bumblebees feasting persistently.

Would it be worth turning in your wheat patch and oversowing with a winter-hardy legume? The burn-off could clear the seed bank in the topsoil - yet some species are very durable and don't mind a passing fire at all.

Congratulations on your melons. I hope you feast royally!

Meantime - I'm also wishing and hoping that tranquility returns to your household.

Thanks for sharing with us.

For the powercuts, I'm not really sure how to get around that, as I wanted the zucchini for a very specific purpose, and drying or canning it will not leave it in the consistency I need for my recipe. It's an awesome soup made with zucchini, tomatoes, leeks, beans, spinach, and some herbs. It's wonderful, and it is one of the few things I will gladly eat as leftovers.

I'm not sure if the marigolds attracted any moths at night, but they certainly astounded me with how big they've gotten. Even now, they are still growing (and we are heading into fall), and you have to walk down the very center of the path like a tightrope walker if you don't want them brushing up against your legs. It's crazy!

Funnily enough, I love dandelions. I know that most people really try to get rid of them, and I certainly don't want them in my garden, but I think they are pretty. I've always (even now) loved to blow them once they've gone to seed, and my little one thinks it's fun too, so we get to puff on them together. :)

I'll certainly look into what flowers will be good for my bees. I'll be out building my top-bar hive this winter, so I'm sure I'll spend at least a month completely consumed with how to keep my little buzzers happy once they get here!

Honestly, I think I'm done with gardening for this year. I'll still get those last two patches boxed in and ready to overwinter, but it's more because I know I'll be sorry that I didn't do it next spring if I put it off this fall.

October is coming up, and the days leading up to it are getting harder and harder. If you remember from one of my earlier posts, I was expecting another little one this October. He was stillborn at the end of May. It's been a tough ride, and pretty much all the joy has been sucked out of gardening since then. My little girl was still excited about it all, though, since she is too little to understand about the baby, so I kept it going for her. Otherwise, I probably would have burned it all to the ground. I tend to show my sorrow outwardly when I'm grieving (I have a hard time crying for some reason), and this is the biggest loss I've ever experienced. I even ended up clipping all of my hair (which was pretty long) down to about 1/2 inch. Well, he was due October 3rd. I was doing pretty well until this month, and now each day seems to get heavier and heavier. I've had people that I love die before, but this is completely different. It's also something that most people won't talk about. I think it makes folks uncomfortable to think about children dying. Geez, sorry to unload all of that. To try to end this on a happy note, we are planning to plant a tree for him on his birthday (May 20) next year. I really like the Royal Empress trees, but they are getting some mixed reviews. I also saw an extremely old birch tree this summer, and just fell in love with it, so I may choose a birch. So, I'll spend this winter finalizing my choice of tree, too.

A small grove of trees could make a remembering place in spring time. Protection from winds. Shelter for spring bulbs. Shade for summer - for present and future generations. A work in progress.

We've got a La Nina year this time so I'm not growing much. Conserving water, as I don't have family to feed. Just hauling the laundry rinse water out for putting around the fruit trees. (I reckon it's worth it:-)) )