Master Plan: Backstory

I recently promised to give an account of our amazing garden plan, and so I will. So simple, it's stupid.

But first, a little backstory. When shopping for our current house, less than a year ago, Sweetie firmly stated that we would NOT buy a house with an RV pad unless the property was massive. We like yard (or thought we did), we have a dog that needs to use the yard, and I wanted to dig up a vast quantity of yard for vegetable gardening. Naturally, even more would have to come out for landscaping.

The house we bought, does not have an RV pad, there is adequate space for Porter to utilize, even some clean grass in the front for the neighbor dog, Midnight, to utilize. I did cover about half the back in veggies, and all but one flower bed has been revitalized or removed.

Because we took possession of the house in December, I had limited time to get a garden in order. This was exacerbated by my reading the date of last frost wrong, and shorting myself by nearly two months. I decided that a modified version of lasagna gardening would do well for the soil. I could build on top of the grass, it would be inexpensive, and my garden would be "weed free." Yeah, right. Also, I would utilize square foot gardening to get the most out of my space, however I would plant less intensely because I was sure my soil wouldn't be perfect

Fast forward to today, where I have so much vegitation in that section of our property that I can hardly walk, and the dog has given up trying to get in to eat the grass because he can't manage to get back out safely and without getting corrected for stepping on my nice fluffy compost. Seed packets simply don't tell you how large squash vines get, therefore I have completely lost almost half of my walkways to vines. The other half have been lost to grass (yes, large fluffy bunches pushing their way through three carloads of cardboard) and other garden weeds. The areas I planted less intensely than recommended by the square foot system, are a constant battle with grass and weeds. The areas I planted according to square foot recommendations, are blocking out weeds fantastically, but often the plants are so dense I can't find the produce.

So, since this is only a practice house, and we will be offloading it this winter with plans to buy in the Midwest, we have created a much more user friendly plan for the next garden. (More on the midwest later, when I  know something about the location).

To prevent the appearance of excessive rambling, continue on to Master Plan: Garden! for the details of the actual plan.