I am in the process of planning Season 2 for my garden and have decided to make a few adjustments to improve my mediocre results last year.

Factors that I believe contributed to that are not enough sun (due to a huge elm tree), garden was too crowded with plantings, and the soil (althought tested with flying colors) did not have any evidence of worms in it because it was new to my garden.

Here are a couple of wide angle shots of what it looks like today. The white fenced garden is my neighbor's garden and has been there for about 30 years.

{{gwi:31861}}

{{gwi:31863}}

The following is a list of things I am in the process of changing.

1) I swapped out my enormous PVC cucumber trellis and my eight 3-foot tall tomato trellises and will be replacing them with something a little more eye appealing. I currently have on order some Burpee tomato cages (stock photo below) and some Burpee cucumber trellises (stock photo below) which is apparently a new product they sell.

{{gwi:31865}}

{{gwi:31867}}

2) I am going to have some tree branches trimmed on my huge elm tree which cast a considerable shadow over my garden. See two photos below showing which branches I am going to trim.

{{gwi:31869}}

{{gwi:31871}}

3) I moved all of my beds so that they are on the perimeter of the garden fence now. I used to have one bed in the middle of the garden which posed a tripping hazard. I basically switched its location with the compost tumbler which is now in the middle. In the process of moving beds around, I decided to transplant about 80% of the soil in every bed into the bed nearest it while adding composted leaves from my tumbler here and there. I was so ecstatic to see how many worms were in my beds. By lining the bottoms of the beds with cardboard last season, it really attracted them.

Some more peripheral shots....

{{gwi:31872}}

{{gwi:31874}}

{{gwi:31875}}

{{gwi:31876}}

4) Now I need to plan Step 4 and could probably benefit from some advice on how not to overcrowd my garden this year. I numbered the beds below to make it a little easier to identify.

{{gwi:31877}}

{{gwi:31878}}

Last season I planted eight tomato plants in the front beds (1 thru 4), two per bed.

Bed 5 (which used to be in the middle) was LOADED with parsley, oregano, and basil.

Bed 6 contained cucumbers on one half of the bed and summer squash and zuchinni on the other half. The bed was not as close to the fence as it is now so I had access to it from both sides of the bed. The rectangular PVC trellis allowed cukes to grow on both sides, forming a tunnel of sorts. Now that I moved the bed back to the fence I no longer have access to the back side.

Bed 7 contained leaf lettuce, celery, and dill.

My plan this year:

Bed 1 (2'x 4'): zucchini and yellow squash using the new trellises (pic above)

Bed 2 (2'x 4'): cucumbers using the new trellises (pic above)

Bed 3 (2'x 4'): cucumbers using the new trellises (pic above)

Bed 4 (2'x 4'): parsley, dill, basil

Bed 5 (2'x 6'): 3 tomatoes using the new cages (pic above)

Bed 6 (2'x 8'): 4 tomatoes using the new cages (pic above)

Bed 7 (3'x 4'): lettuce

In my portable planters (that are currently resting on bed 6) I plant extra lettuce because we go through it so fast.