Organic Vegetable Garden

Boy, would we ever love to show you our garden! We've got about 3,000 square feet of garden. This is our third summer at this house, and we're a little behind in getting pictures of things. We are already eating lots of peas, lettuce and radishes though! Eggplants are starting to ripen, too.

At this point we're getting pretty good at doing our own seedlings from the start. All plants in the garden this year were started that way. We've got 12 varieties of tomatoes, 6 or more varieties of peppers, 2 varieties of eggplant, and so forth. As we get the chance, we'll try to document the various types and how they did in our location.

We entered a bunch of things in the Bolton Fair, and even won some ribbons!. Click here to learn more about the fair, and see the ribbons.

The pictures here are pretty old...

Here's the garden in late May, 1995:


And here is a little of the produce we got:

With this large garden, automation of some tasks became a necessity. So, it was off to the workshop to create this:
This creation is in use for the second year. The home automation system in the house controls the garden valves, as well as turning lights on and off as needed. Drop an email to Dan if you want to learn more about how the automation system works.

Herb Garden

Outside the kitchen door, there's a nice herb harden with Sage, Basil, Thyme, Oregano, Marjoram, Peppermint, Parsley, Chives, Caraway, Fennel, Catnip, and a few other odds and ends.

Greenhouse

We got an unusual greenhouse this year:

and have lots of things growing inside. Click on the picture of the greenhouse, or here to look inside!

Hydroponics

We really got brave this year, and decided to give hydroponics a try. We've got two different setups running in the living room. The first, which is called Emily's Garden, has the plant pots sitting down into the nutrient medium, and the medium is aerated by an aquarium bubbler. The plant pots themselves contain a clay rock aggregate to support the plants, and rock wool cubes that the seedlings had gotten started in. This garden currently has two different types of pepper (serrano and jalapeno), basil, savory, bok choi (which is a type of chinese cabbage that's popular for stir-frying) and a Sweet 100 cherry tomato. The cherry tomato may have been a mistake -- this thing is taking over the room!

The other garden, a Megagarden, is a two-level system. The lower level is the nutrient reservoir, the upper level contains the plant pots. Twice a day the nutrient is pumped up into the upper level, where it floods the pots for about 30 minutes, and it then drains back into the reservoir. At the moment, we have Red Sails lettuce, marjoram, marigolds, chinese lantern plant, eggplant, parsley, bush beans and a bush cucumber growing in this one. The bush cucumber isn't much of a bush -- the vine is now up to the top of the plant cart, and is threatening to meet the cherry tomato in the middle somewhere. Welcome to the jungle... :-)

Send any comments or suggestions to faith@senie.com or to dan@senie.com.
Back to Faith's page. Back to Dan's page.