Growers Fatigue and a new yard

[danwigz]

Well its been a few months since I last posted, I've moved to the opposite side of Wisconsin and am currently renting an apt until my house sells. Needless to say the end of 2010 was a bit stressful, especially Sept-Oct.

As I found out, I was unprepared for harvest, mostly due to the move (and lack of planning), and had a huge case of gardening fatigue. Fortunately a neighbor kindly offered to take a lot of the work of my hands and took away the bulk of my crop (with my blessing). Most of the tomatoes I kept went into freezer bags, and now I'm wishing I had a lot... lot more. Fresh (well from frozen maters) tomato sauce is just soooo much better than store bought.

This coming year I'm going to have a plan of attack for harvest time so that I can get the bulk of my crop stored for winter. I had absolutely no plan for harvest which was a lot of my problem.

So here's my new dilemma: my apt has a huge yard with no sun. ARG! I've already decided that I have to grow 5 varieties of maters no matter what. This doesn't include any other veggies, potatoes, or herbs I want to grow. I know the yard won't help my plants thrives so I've decided I should rent a community garden plot.

The community garden plot, according to my local city's site is 20'x 40' and is $30 (I'm not sure if that's for the season or per month, but it doesn't say its per month). 20x40!!! This past year I had 3 4x6 raised beds. I need any suggestions of how I can divide up this space. I probably won't use it all (haha famous last words) but I'd like to grow a lot of different stuff, and this also means I don't have to limit myself to just the essential tomato plants.

Granted I won't know the specifics of the plot until much closer to planting time, but I feel I should have a good idea of what I'm going to do with this. I guess this goes along the very "general category" of discussion, but any tips, advice, suggestions would be very helpful.

Thanks a bunch

Danwigz