While reading the Jan. 8 ice storm reminiscences, I began to think about a guide to urban gardening that will guide you through plant selection, assigning space based on potential yield and unique crop needs. I have seven beds and three stacks of used tires. One bed is mostly lettuces, interspersed with spinach and several varieties of carrots. Lettuce is picked when ready, carrots at the end of growing season.
There are seven raised beds, several with 5-foot tripods for climbing plants like pod peas and perfectly round melons. Other beds are for row crops like varieties of green beans and potatoes, grown with a seaweed mulch, and several with large “bushes” like zucchini.
There are four stacks of tires reserved for plum tomatoes and strawberries
Gardens are more than veggies, and so I also have:
• Four high-bush blueberries, which produce many quarts of large berries.
• Several varieties of apples, including Cortland, Macintosh and Northern Spy. Several neighbors have unusual varieties like Lodi, which I will gather, grow and then replant.
• A young pear tree.
• Two thriving Elberta peach trees.
I have four stacks of used tires planted with different varieties of strawberries, early and late. Mesh “caps“ are on each stack.
Never overlook “wild“ plants. I found a cluster of red raspberries growing along a cyclone fence. So I clipped some new shoots and planted them next to the garage. The next year, all sprouted and produced several bushes of very large berries.
Frank Heller
Katahdin Energy Works & Ocean Gardens
Brunswick
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