Bought a house last year and previous owners left a bunch of soil in the basement. Perfect, we’ll do a garden this year. Made the mistake of asking my 5 year old what we should plant, and she said “blueberries” and I said “sounds fun”. Fellow gardeners, I did not realize you need TWO blueberry bushes to cross pollinate and produce fruit. So we got one Climax and one Austin blueberry bushes.
Now, we live in Atlanta, GA so clay soil is very prevalent and the sunniest part of our yard is also the most clay. So garden boxes!
Except the containers I got for the blueberries are too large and we don’t want them to get transplant shock. So strawberries and herbs to help fill it out and attract pollinators.
I grew up growing tomatoes, and an heirloom tomato BLT is one of life’s greatest pleasures, so we got a Cherokee Purple. Which I learned, because I’m new at this, is indeterminate and can get very, very large. So a cage. Add some tomatillos and peppers and this is what we’re doing this year, mostly by accident. Plus some watermelon plants not pictured here because the 5 year old snuck them in the cart while I was distracted by basil. So now we have way, way more than I was expecting. We’ll see how this goes!
by sleep-debt-momma
4 Comments
It’s ok I’m growing 1000 broccoli seedlings that I have to cull dramatically because my seed packet got wet during a storm while I was visiting the shops. Love your raised beds!!
Whatever. If you start, do it big. Get addicted. Who cares if you mess up. You’ll learn. Keep it up!!
Make sure to get soil acidifier for the blueberries! Also Holly-Tone or Berry-Tone, they’re fertilizers for acid loving plants. You’ll also want to mulch them to help keep the roots cool. I like pine bark mulch myself.
I’ve also had better luck with native strawberries than garden strawberries under blueberry bushes because they tolerate shade a little bit better. So if you can find them I would throw one or two in there! The Latin name is fragaria virginiana and the common name is Virginia/wild strawberry.
I somehow ended up going from a small in ground garden last year to 6 – 4×8, 2 – 2×8, and 2 – 2×4 raised beds with drip irrigation. Planning on tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, carrots, sweet corn, potatoes in grow bags, strawberries, a couple pumpkins, watermelon and green beans. Oh, and a row of raspberries. I don’t know how I got here 😂