Community Garden

This weekend I finally got to see my new community garden plot. Or rather a field with roughly tilled ground that we spend several hours measuring and staking plots that are 14feet by 12 feet deep; laying out red mulch for walkway so everyone knows where to walk and where the plots are; raking out weeds and pulling out rocks before anything could be done. This is no where near what I was hoping it would be but I'm happy that it's free to use, and since someone else declined their plot at the last minute I asked and was given 2 plots! So of course I started on them right away. I had two hay bales so I took 4" thick layers and did the perimeter of the garden, separating my area from neighbors and covering back of the garden near fencing to prevent weeds from overtaking the area. So after few hours of raking, cleaning, weeding and mulching with hay this is what it looked like - not very attractive.  

 Then I laid out the landscaping cloth on one bed and planted tomatoes - 25 of them, that included cherokee purple, brandywine, yellow pear, black cherry, san marzano, black krim, rutgers and a rainbow mix - no clue what they'll turn out. Hopefully they will all produce good harvest and it will be enough for the food pantry and something might be left to use at home. So this is what the bed looked like after I was done with it. Some of the tomatoes had to spill to the second bed but I didn't want to over-crowd it. On the very back I did a row of running green beans that can use the fencing for support.

 On the second bed I planted a mix of things - 5 tomatoes that didn't fit on first bed; 12 sweet peppers; 12 leeks, 3 eggplant; 2 watermelons; 1 cantaloupe, butternut squash and 6 pickle bush cucumbers. Melons will be using the backdrop fencing to climb (they're all in the last row on the back) so hopefully it won't be in a way.

I didn't have enough landscaping fabric to cover both beds so I will get more hay and will mulch everything with it around the plants so it retain moisture. It's supposed to be raining for next couple of days so I really hope plants will set well and will start growing. Now I have to figure out how to get supports for all these tomatoes.