Saturday, December 21, 2013

Gardening- Planning Garden Box 2 for 2014

My plan


Garden Box 2
 
Dinner (2013)
 
        This is my hubby's favorite garden box. This year garden box 2 will hold my potatoes. I started growing potatoes three years ago. I love having potatoes and regarding a taste so much better when they're picked fresh! I still haven't learned all the tricks of them but every year I seem to grow more potatoes. I seem to do best with Yukon potatoes and the purple ones. 
 
Harvesting Potato 2013
       I love growing potatoes in my garden box because they break up the soil I have clay soil around where I live so anything that breaks them up is a huge help. I have also realized that when I grew potatoes I add a lot of dirt to the garden box to keep the potatoes covered. This helps me keep soil in the garden boxes and have fresh new topsoil every four years.  
 
Potato Bed 2012
      The first year I grew potatoes I covered them with hay. The potatoes grew okay, because I used hay there's a huge mess. There was hay all over my garden. The hay also left seeds all over my garden. I am still weeding hay this year. Last year, I used dirt to cover the potatoes potato. The potatoes seem to grow a lot better and my harvest was a lot more than the first year. I decided that I'm going to use dirt again this year to cover the potatoes. 
 
Potato Bed 2013 
       The only thing I'm doing different this year from last is I am going to add companion plants to my potato garden box. You can read why I am adding companion plants  to make garden box on my blog, Gardening tips - plant companion plants together. I have done a lot of research on which companion plants are better supplant with potatoes. The four plants that I am going to plant with my potato are horseradish, alyssum, lovage and radishes. 
Horseradish ~ Thank you Armoracia rusticana Horseradish
       Horseradish is thought to be a great companion plants potatoes because of it's strong scent. This set has been known to deter potato bugs. I am also very excited for this news because I've wanted to plant horseradish in my garden but never had a spot to plant it. Throughout the research on horseradish, I will plant it in my garden box around May 10.
 
Alyssum ~ Thank you www.panamseed.com
       Alyssum are pretty little white flowers that will act like a life mulch for my potato plants. The flowers will attract helpful bugs to the garden box. This will be a huge help because last year I had ant farming my aphid. Therefore the aphids destroyed a lot of my potato plant. Hopefully by having more helpful bugs being drawn to my plants this will help the aphid problem that I had last year. I am hoping to start planting my alyssum inside around March 14. 
Loveage ~ Thank you www.botanical.com
       I have been dying to add lovage to my garden. Lovage it has been around for many years and you can find it a lot of the older garden plans. Back in the older days the settlers would use the lovage as a winter salad. While researching my companion plants or potatoes I came across lovage. I was so excited, because I have the seed and have been trying to figure out where to plant them and now I have a perfect spot! Love is a that is supposed to taste like celery. Planning it next to the potatoes it is suppose to help with the flavor of potatoes. It also is a good place for helpful bugs to hide. I am planning to start planting my lovage inside around March 7.
 
Chinese Red Meat
Chinese Red Meat Radish ~ Thank you rareseeds.com
      Radishes are a plant that should be interplanted with potatoes. The reason gardeners do that is because they are fast growing crops and have shortly. The crop will be done growing,  before the potatoes are even near being ready to be harvest. The roots are so shallow and thin, that they will not hurt the growth of the potatoes. The reason gardeners would do this is so that they can get two crops out of one area. This allows them to grow more food. My radishes will start to be planted outside around April 11.
 
What are you planning on garden? Let me know, here are some more of my ideas.
 
Planning my 2014 Garden

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