The Current Garden and the Next One

So far, the current garden seems to be doing pretty well. I've got, at least sprouted and some well into growth:

• three varieties of lettuce, plus spinach
• tomatoes
• radishes
• peas
• green beans
• cucumbers
• two varieties of peppers
• radishes
• corn
• green onions
• zucchini
• canteloupe
• pumpkins

But looking at the layout, I don't feel it makes great use of space for the amounts of ultimate likely food production involved.

Growing up on the farm, we had a huge garden laid out in rows. Which makes sense when your garden is probably an acre and a half.

For my current space  -- one raised 4' x 8' bed, and another roughly 4' x 12' space next to it -- I think something along the lines of "square foot gardening" will make a lot more sense for most stuff. Right now I'm probably wasting significant amounts of fertilizer / plant food on soil that will sprout either nothing or weeds, no matter how carefully I apply it.

Once this growing season is over, I'll probably convert that second space into more raised bed, and go "square foot gardening" style there, with a separate, more spread out space for potatoes and the stuff that tends to grow a long vine with its fruit on the ground.

Not that I'm dissatisfied with the likely output of the current setup. It's likely to provide Tamara with several weeks' worth of salads, both of us with some good stir-fry meals, me with several meals' worth of corn to toss on the grill with steak or burgers, as well as canteloupe to pick fresh of an evening, slice, stick in the fridge, and have for breakfast, etc.

But if I do this right, I think I can probably cover a high percentage of our food needs excluding meat/dairy/mushrooms/breads from a garden on a regular basis without an insane amount of work.