The Farm – revamping my veggie beds…. perhaps a little whimsical

For anyone that knows me being a tad whimsical in the garden this year might be exactly who I am.

The veggie beds have always been very structured because I market garden farm. But since my illness last year that really made me sit back and do hardly anything all season and really put things into perspective for me.

I got back to why we originally came here and my goals changed. I will be growing lots of beautiful veggies and fruits for us with some to perhaps sell but the growing strategy has changed drastically.

I want everything to look and be different this year. I want to look out back from the back of the house and from the upstairs bathroom or bedroom and say wow that looks crazy awesome.

I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am to be making these changes…. in some cases it might seem like more work. But I believe that what we will reap from the free feeling whimsical changes I am going to make the it will be big.

I already have 800 cell plugs of early flowers started. That does not include the 4-6 week flowers I have yet to start the two bags of wild flower seed mixes and a huge bag of sunflower seeds I am going to plant. I think if all goes well…. anyone passing by the homestead/farm is gonna be 😮 surprised.

I was out in the gardens and greenhouse today taking a curious look around. I can already see some perennial veggies starting to show life as well as some of our fruit bushes…. I love this time of year. Now we are preparing for a bunch of snow and freezing rain again tonight in Wednesday but hey the end of March and beginning of April are always wild in the weather dept.

So I am making some big changes in the beds… hopefully the pictures won’t be too confusing. The first to pictures are what the garden looks like right now. The red lines drawn in are where the new proposed bed blocks are going to be.

So going from a standard 4 ft x 50ft – 5 row plots system to a 24ft x 25ft square block set up with at least 6 block designs so far that can be intertwined throughout the bed system.

In each of the square blocks I will have both short crops and long crops intermingled. Lots of companion growing and I am introducing flowers that are beneficial to pest control and eating.

All in all I think it’s gonna look spectacular. I will be able to cover up the beds not in use right away after it all gets tilled over and then I will get busy……

I will still be doing succession plantings throughout the summer and growing season its just that those planting will not be in 50 ft rows. I think being able to change things up my have my long term crops intermingled in a block with shorter crops will help with weeding and pests.

Can you imagine seeing corn, beans, tomatoes, herbs, flowers, onions and greens like lettuce or shard all sharing a block in different sized beds all benefiting from each other? I can and I can’t wait to share pictures when they come.

I was thinking that I could even have a themed blocked for canning specifically or just have lots of fun. I think I will have some cool scarecrows and other wind chime like stuff going too… it will be fun but serious at the same time. Considering I spend so much time out there…. why not make it interesting.

So stay tuned into spring and summer pictures as I go forward with my free whimsical veggie/fruit/flower beds.