The other night when Tom and his wife came to dinner, we discussed the gardens. They want to be more involved with them and get food from them, and herbs. If this was to happen, the gardens had to expand due to needing more rotation space than I have.
The only place to expand to is into the middle pasture. This shot covers just about all of the expansion area. The Big garden runs halfway across the middle of the photo below the house. I spent Thursday designing and drawing the new garden.
The current fence for the pasture runs 8’ from the Big garden and 10’ from the Small garden. This is enough for mowing, but not enough to get a truck of mulch in. So I plan to start the Pasture Garden 12’ on the other side of the fence, thereby allowing 20’ between gardens. This fence will be taken down and put up, some day, on the far eastern side of the new Pasture garden.
I went out with a tape measure and got all the spacing measured that I needed to design the new area. The fence posts are around 20’ apart. The property is around 160’ wide here, from far side of driveway to edge of trees.
One problem I had to deal with is the neighbor to the south had planted trees and they now shade about 1/3 of the middle pasture. Great for cows, not so much for a garden. So I set the edge of the new garden 30’ from the pasture fence. I had hoped for a garden the same size as the Big garden, but there just wasn’t room. It was turned 90° to the Big garden, so will run west-east instead of north-south like the other 2 gardens. It will be 40’ wide and 50’ long.
The other thing I needed to plan for, in the unlikely event I ever get one, was a greenhouse. I went grandiose and made it 30’ wide and 50’ long. Mostly I was just making sure there would be room and it wouldn’t end up under the north tree shadow. Also I had to make sure there was room for the vehicles to get through on that side, for wood delivery, etc.
The dark dots up the center are the current fence posts. I put a gate by the driveway side and also one facing the house, for ease in harvesting. There’s a 15’ space between the garden and a future greenhouse.
Even though it is shaded, I am hoping I can get berries and fruit trees to grow in the 30’ to the fence by the driveway. I have very little room in the yard for these, if I don’t want gardens any more shaded than they are.
In the afternoon my friend took me to finish the Christmas shopping. I don’t know what will happen over Christmas as my tenant came down with Covid on Monday. I had to cancel my granddaughter’s visit on Friday, the stove installation on Thursday, all my helpers for the week, and we are waiting to determine what will happen with Tom’s family’s visit on Christmas Night. Last Christmas was ruined by Tom’s whole family coming down with Covid. So we will see…
Thursday I need to finish wrapping presents, clean up the kitchen and water all the house plants. The watering is hard for me without a helper…