Food Garden and More Garlic

Our food garden has an orchard of 20 espaliered fruit trees; a greenhouse, tool shed and potting patio; a berry garden; lots of flowers for me and vegetables all behind a 12' fence. Due to hillside runoff, my garden is usually under water until July. Because it rained all June, we still have super saturated soil. Add to that our altitude and we are lucky to get anything to grow. Our solution are these large tires. Along with the greenhouse, the tires add extra months to our growing season. In front of my quad you can see ruts made just last weekend.

There is one huge downfall to using tires as raised beds (besides being really ugly and hard to mow around). The dirt gets baked if not replaced and tilled in the spring. Garlic is planted in the late summer. Today I dug over 200 heads of elephant garlic. Every garlic head had to be individually dug out of rock hard soil.

elephant garlic in bloom

As long as I am showing off my deer proof garden here is my scarecrow: CPR Annie. She guards my raspberries, strawberries and blueberries. Well not really - though she has been known to give human visitors a start when they spot her. The dogs have not discovered that the berries are ripe. Once they do, lying beneath the bushes in the cool, damp sawdust is their favorite spot in the yard. They just need to lift their head for a sweet feast.