Uphill Vegetable Bed

4/15/12

I'm trying squash again this year. Last year I got some mildew resistant seeds and grew them in self-watering-containers but they didn't perform very well. I didn't get near as many as I got the first year growing them in the vegetable bed. That year I was just about buried in butternut.

4/15/12

I started all the seeds about a week before these pictures were taken, along with some corn and beans. I'm trying for the "Three Sisters" companion planting. It's always exciting to see the first leaves spring out of the dirt.

4/15/12

I decided to use the dirt that Alex and I dug out of the chicken cook a few months ago. I never got around to moving it so it's been sitting next to the coop composting for the better part of a year.

4/15/12

 I raked it into stacked tiers that march up the hill.

 I can fill them with water so they look like little rice paddies and the water doesn't just wash down the hill.

 The seedlings were growing fast so I was eager to get them in the ground

4/21/12

5/11/12

5/11/12

5/23/12

5/23/12

5/23/12

6/2/12

I planted them closer than I normally would because of how they grew last year. the squash seemed more bushy than viney, so I thought they wouldn't spread as much.

I alternated squash, beans and corn.








 Once in the ground they really took off. I was concerned that there may have been too much nitrogen from the chicken droppings but it didn't seem to bother the plants. Maybe it had long enough to decompose.





















It quickly became clear that I planted too much. Maybe because they were in the ground they were able to really take root and grow big. I removed half of the squash and the remaining plants filled in the extra space the next day.






Little young squash formed at the base of the female flowers, perfect miniatures of their future selves.

6/2/12

Just two months after the seeds were planted I got a pretty good haul of summer squash. I planted green zucchini, grey zucchini and golden glory.  The winter squash are coming along pretty well too. I planted three different kinds of acorn and a lot of Betternut 401. Last year I was disappointed in the 401's yield but this year each plant has more squash on it than I got all last summer.