Backyard Production

I grew quite a lot of early crops in my backyard raised beds this year. Two of the three had cooler season crops, such as garlic, onions, lettuce, carrots and peas. The third bed is planted with corn and melons. With the melons growing in my backyard and my rented plots, I have more than 30 melons plants this year. It will be quite a haul if the weather stays hot.

A backyard bed with lettuce, onions, and garlic.

I grew several kinds of lettuce. The most interesting one is the
red-speckled Forellenschluss, an Austrian heirloom
that is similar to romaine.

A backyard bed with carrots, bunching
onions, peppers, leeks (seedlings under
the mesh), and peas.

I grew Sugar Ann snap peas and this variety, a Dutch bush variety called
Desiree Dwarf Blauwschokkers. It has small, violet-colored snow-pea
pods. It is worthy as a novelty, but the flavor is rather bland. 

Unfortunately, my experiment in trying to inhibit the big-A maple tree from sending roots into my raised beds failed. The roots grew right through the porous black material I placde in the bottom of the beds. Two of the beds were done this spring. They will remain productive because it will take a while for the tree roots to take over. However, there is a huge root mass in the third bed, which had the lettuce and onions. I pulled the last of the lettuce this week because it bolted. I pulled the garlic and most of the onions. There are maybe two dozen onions left. They will be stunted from having all the nutrients sucked out by the tree roots.

I'm not looking forward to redoing the three beds again. They will have to be dug out and fitted with black plastic. If that doesn't work, there is not much point in using the backyard beds. There is about a yard of soil in each, and it is quite a chore to dig it out, put in plastic and refill. Although, having a successful melon crop in the backyard, like I will have this year, is worth the effort.