Starting a New Garden

July 17, 2014

Starting a New Garden

Last summer we were living in New Mexico and had a beautiful and productive garden, once I figured out some of the ins and outs of growing things in the high desert. In late January of this year, we moved onto a new homestead in central Maine and started over. From scratch.

From what we've learned from neighbors, years ago our homestead was a turkey farm and had large fields planted with crops. Those fields were sold off separately from the piece we now own and there are no remaining signs that a turkey farm ever existed here. Our farmhouse is surrounded by a lawn area and at the edge of this lawn, the land is in disarray. It's clear that the people who owned it before us didn't wrap up their projects before they moved out. About half of the acreage is woods that was logged repeatedly, probably most recently about a decade or so ago. Closer to the house are woods that have been selectively thinned for firewood in the last several years. Here, some trees were removed but many more were felled and left to lie on the ground. This area is still covered in trees and stumps. Still closer to the house is area where all the trees where cut down. Here too the trees were left to lie; the branches were cut off and hauled to an imposing pile that we are in the process of slowly burning. This piece of land is covered with stumps, trees that have re-sprouted from the stumps, and a variety of plants such as milkweed. Closest to the lawn is an area where livestock were kept. We found on old pig pen, two small chicken coops, and a compost heap. This area too had been neglected for the past several years. It was covered with scattered stumps sprouting new trees, and several years' worth of grass and weeds that had gone to seed. Under that layer of decomposed plant matter, however, was some beautiful dark humus.

Silly us, we didn't choose to put our garden in that area. Since it's close to the house and thus easier to reach during the winter, it's where we plan to house our animals. We decided on the next further out area, the one where there were no standing trees but many sprouted stumps.

Before the snow was completely melted we were out there cutting down the saplings and setting markers for the garden's boundaries. We arranged for someone to come and brush hog the field to remove the saplings, and then to bulldoze out the stumps. Originally M. and I planned to buy or rent a rototiller to break the soil in the garden area, but the more we thought about the back-breaking labor involved in doing it ourselves versus the ease of hiring someone to come in with a tractor and tiller, the more attractive that second option became. We decided that purchasing a tractor and tiller of our own was also something we would delay off for now. There are other more pressing priorities in our homesteading budget, such as completely unexpected income taxes (surprise!!!) and re-roofing part of the house and the barn.

Snow covered yard on March 24th.


Serious melting, April 8th.

I started seedlings in our sun porch area in early to mid April. That area of the house is not insulated and we didn't heat it, so I had to wait to start seeds until the temperatures stayed above freezing there and use heat lamps for things like tomatoes and peppers. The growing season in central Maine is very short.

Snow just about gone, April 29th.

The last frost date in our area can be as late as the second week in June and the first frost as soon as the second week in September, so it's just not possible to grow things like tomatoes and peppers unless they're started under cover. Their seeds also require soil temperatures around 80-85 degrees to germinate reliably, hence the need for heat lamps. In New Mexico, the sun was so intense even early in the spring that no heat lamps were necessary. The sun was too intense there and I found myself having to protect tender seedlings by shielding them from the heat of the sun in the middle of the day.


My tomato seedlings on May 2nd.

Even though our sun room is on the south side of the house, due to the angle of the sun and the layout of the windows, we didn't get many hours of sunlight on the seedlings. Those not under the heat lamp, things like broccoli and cabbage, and lettuce got leggy. I moved the cold-hardy vegetables outside to a make-shift deer proof enclosure as soon as I thought they could stand it but some things, such as my cabbages and lettuce, were just too leggy to be salvageable.

Snow completely gone. Cabbage, broccoli, and onions moved outside on May 6.

While the seedlings grew, we continued to cut saplings and haul brush and old cut trees from the garden area.


M. hauls logs out of the area that will be the garden, April 29th.

Under the melted snow, we discovered more than a few brush piles left by the previous owners. These piles had been there for quite awhile--they had a few seasons worth of dead weeds covering them and growing through them, which made it difficult to pull out the brush for burning. There was one pile twice as tall as me and as big around as our barn. We spent the end of April and most of May cutting saplings, pulling out the old and new brush, and creating more manageable burn piles. We hoped to finish this and get the piles burned and out of the way before Ricky returned with his tractor to brush hog the area and push out the stumps. It's now the middle of the July, we've had several burn sessions, and we haven't finished this project yet...

One of the many brush piles. The dog gives a sense of scale.

Burning brush, May 10th.

The field couldn't worked until it was dry enough for the tractor to handle. It seemed to rain every day in May but finally Ricky appeared early one morning and within an hour had cut all the remaining saplings and brush within a few inches of the ground. Then at the end of May it rained for another week while we held our breathe waiting until it was dry enough for Ricky to return.


Area of garden-to-be, now with logs removed and brush hogged, May 10th.

While we wait, I get impatient and decide that we need to get our peas started. We hand-dig an area for them.


Digging an area for peas, May 15th.

It rains. And rains. And rains again.

Clover in the rain. May 21st.

I worry that we won't get the garden in on time for things to ripen before the frost. Ricky returns to till the garden area on May 22nd.

Tilled garden area, May 22nd.

I continue to worry, because we need to fence it and create beds before we can plant anything.

It rains some more. I plant peas and worry some more.

Peas, May 24th.

On the few non-rainy days, I put my remaining seedlings outside to harden them off in preparation for planting.


Hardening off the seedlings

We layout the garden and dig beds.


Laying out and digging beds, May 28th.

M. pounds in the posts and attaches deer netting.

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M. pounds in the posts, May 28th.

Our delivery of compost arrives and we add it to the beds.


Working soil, digging beds, and adding compost, May 29th.

We plant the first beds with beans--black, yellow, red, and green.

Beans are in, June 1st.

I transplant the tomato seedlings into the garden beds.

Tomatoes in the ground, June 2nd.

My peas in the other garden germinate.

Pea plants, June 3rd.

The beans germinate.

Beans, June 8th.

The asparagus roots send up sprouts.

Asparagus, June 9th.

The cold tolerant crops go in. They've been outside for a month already, I just transplant them into the garden.

Broccoli, June 10th.

Leeks, June 13th

Tomatillos, June 13th.

Squash germinate, June 13th.

With almost everything planted and taking root, I begin to relax a little... Now, I weed, pick off cucumber beetles, keep my eyes open for varmints, and watch everything grow.