Seeking winter sun
My front-garden renovations
are only about halfway complete, but I took a break this week to get
the mule garden in order. I hadn't originally planned to do anything
here except weed, mulch, and plant rye. But looking at the area with a
critical eye made me realize that this zone could use some bed
renovations as well.
The mule garden is our
sunniest winter spot, so I save it for spring and fall
crops. But as you can see in the photo above, the beds closest to the
barn don't get much morning sun at all in the off season. Meanwhile, the
trellis you can barely see at the left side of this photo uses up prime
sunny real estate. Looks like Kayla and I will be moving some dirt
today from the shade to the sun!
The new beds will be much
appreciated since I've been slacking on my crop rotation in the mule
garden. The trouble is that most of what I want to grow there is in the
crucifer family, so I've been rotating species rather than families in
an effort to squeeze everything in. As a result, diseases are starting to build up
and make my fall crucifers much less vigorous. I'm eying the back
garden as possible additional rotation area --- it's not quite as sunny
in the dead of winter and the ground water is high between the beds, but
a tiny bit more shade and harvesting in muck boots might be worth it to
break those disease cycles and get our winter crops in order for next
year.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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