WOW greenbean! It all looks wonderful!! I'm jealous of that sunlight and the yield you got last year! It's wonderful.

I love looking at pictures of others gardens....Thanks for posting them!

Thanks for sharing those pics greenbean. I can't wait to see what all you grow next year.

EG

Your garden is SO beautiful. AND I'm really excited about your yield numbers. They're so helpful for me.

I'm another one that loves to look at other poeple's garden. Thanks.

Amazing use of space. Assuming your back yard has a southern exposure you can't go wrong with that setup. And in the winter, that wall should help retain heat to create a microclimate. That and your house should help too. Might consider fall/winter gardening. Well, maybe next year at this point. But all-in-all beautiful design. And from the looks of it, you're a poster garden for gardening cheaply and green. Very inspiring.

Oh, and I love the potato bin. Next time you're starving them, cover the bin with one of your curtains. Sprinkler won't harm them then!
Thanks for sharing.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sinfonian's garden adventure

Awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As for the size of the tubing being different on each bed, it kind of makes them look like covered wagons. Pretty neat in my book! You might play with that idea some and make it work for ya.... At least that's what I'd do!

Thanks also for sharing your yields. That's the one thing I'm the most curious about with everyone's gardens!

As for the corn, you're certainly not the only one who needs to work on that one. It can be a tough one to swing for most people from what I hear.

Blessings,
Angela

Thanks for the nice comments all.

carolynp, if it would help you, I can include how much of what I planted. Next year, I'm going to keep track of yields a little better. I didn't start tracking until after I came back from my trip. I have a really old scale that seems to weigh accurately enough (I checked it against my digital postal scale, and it was pretty close). I keep the scale in my kitchen window, and keep a calendar in the "bowl" so I can track it as I pick it.

sinfonian, you were one of my inspirations for the potato bin. Next year, the potatoes won't be against the retaining wall. I don't know where they'll be yet, but away from the sprinkler for certain. Water does seem to go through the curtain ok, so I don't know how much that would help. I need to get some more fence boards, I want to build another one.

My garden is on the south side of my house. It gets great sun over there, and the dogs can't get to it. It does get a little shaded during the summer, but mostly where the raspberries will be. I do hope to garden longer next year by starting some indoors and using plastic over the hoops. We do get a lot of sunshine here (they say 300 days a year), so I should be able to get a jump start in the spring. Because we're at 7000 feet, we do have cold nights, and quite a bit of wind. I'm hoping I do a better planning job, so it will be easier to cover next time. I had to let it go this year because I needed to add more to the beds b/c they were about 8" down.

You may be right, I could be the poster child for a cheap garden. All the lumber out there is used and was free. The beds are filled with free manure, leaves, hay, straw, UCG, etc. I have scrounged gobs of leaves this fall. Even the kiddie pool and all that chicken wire keeping the leaves from blowing away, were free. I bought the fence and the posts used, and re-painted. That one was kind of a pain, but I'm not working right now, and I couldn't justify spending $100 for 12 feet of new fence. I did it for about $50 total I think. Even the trash cans out there were from freecycle. The plastic I'll use again come spring I bought from someone on Craigslist for about 1/2 price. A good portion of it was used to wrap items and cover the load of stuff I brought back on my trip this summer, and was still good enough to use again. I did buy the yellow garden cart out there, new. I love that thing, I use it a ton. I'm quite proud of how little I spent building my garden. Come to think of it, I think that's what I started posting in this forum about...

I've posted on the optimal way folks can start gardening for cheap or free. You're living proof it works. Of course, you could have skipped the boards and gone with soil augmentation, but you did awesome going the extra mile for raised beds. I bet you did that because you had poor soil. Downright amazing.

And since you're composting now, you can use it to amend the soil when you replant. Perfect. Bravo!

Hey, Greenbean, followed you here from RMG. Nice pics.

Hint for the corn: ir really is true that the closer the plants, the better the pollnation. I keep mine 1 foot apart, which fits perfectly in the SFG, and try to plant sunflowers to the wind side of the corn. The sunflowers help to block the wind and keep the pollen from blowing to the next county.

The most important part though is to keep the corn in blocks because the pollen needs to drop down to the silks, if you space the corn too far apart, you will have ears with few kernels. Because of this, if you feel you have to inner plant, do the three sisters: corn, pumpkin and beans but keep the corn close together.

Good luck,
Billie

Angela,
Yeah, they do look a little like covered wagons... When I was in elementary school, I built a little covered wagon for class once. Pretty similar. I don't think Tinkertoy wheels would do much for these though...

sinfonian,
You're right about the soil. I've dug up gardens in west Texas and in Montana, but I didn't even put a shovel into the soil here before I decided to go up... It didn't look appealing at all to try and dig. I'd probably still be trying. Heck, just to dig the 3 postholes for the picket fence took about forever. I had to use some water and a 6' metal digging bar to do it (it's called a San Angelo bar, which cracks me up b/c that's where I lived in TX many moons ago.. could have used one there for sure...)

Billie- Thanks for travelling... I'm hoping to plant a variety of corn that spaces 6" apart, hoping that will help the pollination problem. I think you're right about the pollen blowing away. While the garden may be a little more sheltered from the wind, sometimes it's more of a wind tunnel it seems. When my corn was small, the wind flattened it several times. It seemed strange to me that it was flattened from the north, so it was like the wind came from the house!! To keep my peppers from being flattened as well, I took a scrap piece of the sheer fabric and attached it to a few sticks around the plants, like a little curtain corral. It helped them a lot. My corn plants got tougher, and grew some real roots. Once they were closer to 3' tall, they didn't blow over any more. I may have to try the sunflower trick.