July 1. If necessary I could use much of
this row for quick crops that would be harvested before I wanted to
sow broccoli or cauliflower, but I don't need more room. The first
sowings of broccoli are pulled out early enough to permit succession
sowings of arugula or other late salad greens.

Row 8: The Trellis

Here I erect a 125-foot-long, 6-foot-tall net trellis for gourmet
delicacies like pole peas and pole beans. The bean vines block
almost all water that would to on beyond it and so this row gets
more irrigation than it otherwise might. The peas are harvested
early enough to permit a succession sowing of Purple Sprouting
broccoli in mid-July. Purple Sprouting needs a bit of sprinkling to
germinate in the heat of midsummer, but, being as vigorous as kale,
once up, it grows adequately on the overspray from the raised bed.
The beans would be overwhelmingly abundant if all were sown at one
time, so I plant them in two stages about three weeks apart. Still,
a great many beans go unpicked. These are allowed to form seed, are
harvested before they quite dry, and crisp under cover away from the
sprinklers. We get enough seed from this row for planting next year,
plus all the dry beans we care to eat during winter. Dry beans are
hard to digest and as we age we eat fewer and fewer of them. In
previous years I've grown entire rows of dry legume seeds at the
garden's edge.

Row 9: Cucurbits

This row is so wide because here are grown all the spreading
cucurbits. The pole beans in row 8 tend to prevent overspray; this
dryness is especially beneficial to humidity-sensitive melons,
serendipitously reducing their susceptability to powdery mildew
diseases. All cucurbits are fertigated every three weeks. The squash
will have fallen apart by the end of September, melons are pulled
out by mid-September. The area is then tilled and fertilized, making
space to transplant overwintered spring cabbages, other overwintered
brassicas, and winter scallions in October. These transplants are
dug from nurseries on the irrigated raised bed. I could also set
cold frames here and force tender salad greens all winter.

Row 10: Unirrigated Potatoes

This single long row satisfies a potato-loving household all winter.
The quality of these dry-gardened tubers is so high that my wife
complains if she must buy a few new potatoes from the supermarket
after our supplies have become so sprouty and/or shriveled that
they're not tasty any long