Farmhouse Garden Tour 2020

The farmhouse garden has been a labor of love this year. But at a lot of times, it’s also just felt like labor.

I’m literally standing back, looking at it now and I’m in awe of how much we’ve accomplished. It is like we birthed something, something very beautiful and precious.

And, I guess we did.

We took this space from nothing and turned it into a bit of a dream come true. It’s taken almost all season for me to feel like it looks “decent.”

I kept waiting to write this post until it was “done.” Sometime in July, I realized it was never going to be done. There’s always work to do in the farmhouse garden. But it’s the type of work that’s good for your soul. The kind that reaches in and helps ease your heart and your mind. Plus, it has the added benefit that it can actually feed your belly.

So today, while it isn’t perfect and with many projects left to do, I wanted to show it off to you and explain how we made this kind of magical space happen.

Planning the farmhouse garden

First, I started planning this space in January and February. I had so many big ideas and dreams but putting them down on paper was important for me to focus everything.

Did it all work out like our original plan? No. You can see that {HERE}.

We had to change things along the way and adapt. Mainly, we had to move the greenhouse from its originally planned spot to the back of the garden. The township didn’t want it so close to the property line.

But you know what? It was a happy accident. I can’t imagine a view better than this now.

Raised garden beds

There’s a lot of debate amongst gardeners about planting in raised beds versus straight in the ground. For us, raised beds are necessary. Our property is low lying and water tends to sit in groups throughout the property. On one side of the property, we even have a natural wetlands. Turtles, frogs and toads are frequent finds and friends around here.

When it rains, water might collect around the beds for a day or two until it all dries out again. In order to preserve our seeds and keep everything in place, we needed to provide well-draining-stable soil.

Before we started laying down the raised beds and the pea gravel, we even had to bring in 14 cubic yards of dirt and 7 cubic yards of sand to fill in some holes in our current space.

Once things were more level with fewer holes, we were able to layout our garden boxes.

Last year we had 10 raised garden beds and 2 water tubs we used to plant in. This year we now have 36 raised garden beds

You can see the instructions we used for our raised garden beds {HERE}.

Pea gravel and boarder

Once all the raised beds were in, we knew we wanted to have pea gravel in between them. Mowing in between the 10 we had last year was a nightmare and we wanted to make everything easier.

Now that it’s done, it is easier. But the process? That was honestly the hardest and most physical part of this whole garden for us. It took months.

April, May, June, July…each of those months we were working on prepping for the stones by laying landscaping fabric, hauling stones from the front of the house all the way back to the garden and creating a boarder to contain the stones (Something I didn’t consider in my original plan.).

Pea gravel is sold in tons. I lost track of how many tons we ordered somewhere after the third load of 7 tons. We had to rent a dingo tractor with a bucket to move them all. And we rented that a lot.

Then we used 4×4’s and mending plates to contain all the stones and boarder the beds. Are they perfect? No. There’s definitely prettier options, but this is what we can afford now and it works well as long as you don’t ram into it with the lawn mower (Kevin).

The greenhouse

I’m not sure how long I’ve been dreaming about the greenhouse, but it’s been awhile. I knew I wanted this greenhouse and I shopped around for a year looking for the best price. When I found it, I bought it this winter and made it part of the plan.

Now, it’s my happy place within a happy place. I could sit in there all day reading if I had a couch. I could sit in there just watching the garden and feel the breeze come through the windows.

It’s bright, it’s airy and it works beautifully. Is it pretty around the space? No. This year was installation. Next year I hope to plan the landscaping around the greenhouse and make the space it sits in pretty.

You can find our greenhouse {HERE} and it’s the best price I’ve found for it. It comes primed but not painted white, which was a bit of a shock because I didn’t read the fine print. We used the Sherwin William base white color to paint it and added electrical inside. I’ll create a full post on the greenhouse soon and link it here when it’s up.

You can find the instructions for our potting and processing bench {HERE}.

The vegetables we grew

So, what did we grow in the farmhouse garden this year? So much! It’s just beyond my wildest dreams. Here’s a quick list…

• Bush beans – Find our trellises {HERE}
• Rosemary
• Pumpkins – About 6 different types including Cinderella, Ghost pumpkins, Birdhouse Gourds, Little Jacks and more.
• Musk melon
• Cantaloupe
• Watermelon
• Rhubarb
• Strawberries
• Pickles (two kinds)
• Cucumbers
• Tomatoes – About 8 different varieties including Mortgage Lifters, Big Rainbow two different types of cherry tomatoes and Cherokee Purple, which have become my favorite
• Zucchini (Two varieties)
• Rainbow peppers
• Hot pepper
• Hot dog peppers
• Purple Basil
• Corn
• Dill
• Genovese Basil
• Spicy basil
• Cauliflower
• Broccoli
• Eggplant
• Tomatillos
• Kale
• Butter Lettuce
• Bib Lettuce
• Arugula
• Onions
• Shallots
• Cabbage
• Alaska Peas
• Snow Peas
• Asian Peapods

Looking at that whole list is kind of shocking now. It’s the first time I’ve written it out and I’m really amazed. But it doesn’t end there…

The fruits of our labor

This year we also planted fruit trees and blueberry bushes too.

We added in a Granny Smith Tree, a McIntosh tree, a Pink Pearl apple tree, two Wealthy apple trees and a Shinseiki Pear tree. The trees have had a rough go of it this season. We got them really late due to the issues with covid and supply chains this year and didn’t get them into the ground until mid-May. Then we had a late freeze. The next week it was 90 and it stayed 90 all summer with very little rain after early June. Despite it all, we do have a few apples on the tiny Wealthy apple tree. It’s literally just a stick of a tree but yet, three apples flourished there. Nature can be truly amazing.

Last but not least, we planted some blueberry bushes. Specifically, we planted four Duke Blueberry Bushes and two Pink Lemonade Blueberry bushes. They’re also had a rough go of it for the same exact reasons as the trees. But, they’ve also had to deal with more crab grass and weeks encroaching on them, despite us adding some landscaping fabric around them.

The flower area

I believe you can learn just as much from your failures in the garden as you can from your successes. My planned flower area for the farmhouse garden was a failure this year.

By the time I was done planting all the vegetables it was the end of June and I was running out of steam. We also had to prep the flower area similar to the vegetable garden area. I had to haul in dirt to even out the space…lots of it.

By mid-July, I planted flowers in three rows directly in the ground. It was more of a test really. That area is still pretty soggy, but I didn’t want Kevin to have to build more beds this year. …But early August I had ripped out two of those rows and one now remains. Nothing grew well there except for the Zinnias.

Next year, it looks like we will be adding a few more beds to support the flowers versus planning straight in the ground.

The changes

Here’s what the space looked like when we started. The space that the old homeowners were using as their garden is now our backyard. We moved the garden back to create a better, safer space for our kids and dogs to play. That space is now fully fenced to keep out any larger critters and the garden was moved back.

Here is what we did last spring and summer to begin creating the space.

This was last year’s small garden space.

Here is the garden today.

For reference, the arch is in the same spot it was last year.

So, what do you think of the farmhouse garden, friends? You can see me giving a full, guided tour of the farmhouse. garden in the video above if you want to see how everything flows together. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it all below!

Thank you for visiting today! I hope you’ll come back again to see what we’re up to here at Sugar Maple Farmhouse.