Historical Narrative Continued

    In the spring of 2008 I worked on double-digging the garden beds in the new west garden, which measured about 20 ft. by 50 ft. That job was finally finished (more or less) by mid-June. I planted tomatoes, garlic (for the first time ever), potatoes, onions, peas, beans - bush and pole, squash and pumpkins, planted asparagus crowns on the north edge, spinach, lettuce, radishes, and beets. And sweet corn also. The total growing area (in the garden beds) between the south and west gardens was measured to be 833 sq, feet.
    Some observations on that garden:
    1) I spent an awful lot of time standing in the gardens - west and south gardens - with a garden hose in my hand and counting the number of seconds watering tomatoes, corn, onions, etc. I did it but it was a real waste of time. And I never really knew if I was over- or underwatering the plants. Midsummer at least I did try to make an effort to see how fast the water was coming out of the hose. Measured about 4 inch-feet/minute out of the south hose and 3 inch-feet/minute out of the west hose. [Inch-foot means one inch of water covering one sq. foot.]
    2) I planted the potatoes in two adjacent beds in the W. Garden, each bed about 3 ft. wide, separated by an 18-20 inch path. They were two varieties: Carolas and German Butterballs, from Seed Savers Exchange. They were well-fertilized and reasonably well-watered.  They plants grew fabulously large: by July I could no longer walk between the two rows, I had to sort of wedge my way in. The plants were assaulted by potato beetles so I tried brushing them off, picking them, looking for the egg cases and squishing them, finally resorted to a Bon-Neem insecticide spray at $10/bottle. Used up 3 bottles and said that's enough! Finally let the beetles have their way. Nevetheless we got a nice harvest of potatoes.  Also planted Red-Golds and Purple Vikings in the south garden.  They too got hit by beetles (though a bit less so).
    3) The garlic were simply amazing. They were planted the previous fall. I bought bulbs from a local grower at the farmers' market in town, split them into their cloves and planted same in October, '07. By June-July the garlic was up to 6 feet tall and the ends were curlicued - circled around on themselves once or twice. Simply amazing!! We had never seen garlic before so Cathy and I were both astonished.
    4) Onions were delightful. Just planted onion sets we had bought from Jung's in town. But greatly enjoy onions once harvested, pleasing additions to our food.
    5) Generally had good harvests of the crops except for the corn. That grew quite tall but produced little in the way of eatable ears. Maybe too much nitrogen provided?  The stalks grew to 8-9 feet tall, some fell over in winds, couldn't support themselves (lodging I think it's called?).
    6) Rhubarb.  In spring '07 I dug up some roots of week rhubarb that had been growing in this one spot for many years, since long before we bought the house. Divided the rhubarb and planted it in a bed in the south garden.  Actually I planted one new rhubarb plant and also 2 divisions of an old, weak plant. All three grew well that year and in '08 we harvested some stalks and enjoyed rhubarb/strawberry crisps and other goodies. These three plants were planted in a bed about 3 feet wide and 9 feet long. Turns out they are really too close to each other. Nevertheless, they seem to thrive and we enjoyed them greatly in '08 and'09.