Getting ready for gardening
January just finished, and Spring is still a month and a half away. I've been thinking about and planning my garden.
I started by looking through some seed catalogs to get a general idea of what I wanted in my garden this year. After the bazillions of tomatoes last year, I want to give the soil a rest from nightshade and plant some more diverse crops this year. It's been a few years since I've done corn, so this year I'm going to devote a big section to corn. Nothing beats fresh picked corn, and I can use the stalks as filler for my compost bin. I've ordered the seeds, got my seed starter ready and now just need a couple of hours to get it all started.
I'm doing beets again this year, they did well and we all loved them. In addition, I'm trying some new onions. They are supposed to be day length neutral, which might be better suited for this area as we are really close to the day length cutoff. Despite previous failures, I'm going to try cucumbers again. I'm going to grow them among the corn to act as a living mulch along with pumpkins and peas.
Like last year, I'm doing potatoes again. I have already ordered potatoes online and should get them mid March. Even though I made some mistakes last year (dug a few of them way too early) I am hopeful that this year will be as good if not better. It was really nice having fresh grown potatoes last year. Particularly the varieties you don't normally get in the store.
Last Fall, I started some garlic. It is all in one bed and seems to be doing well. I just started cutting down the greens as they come up. They give a milder garlic flavor to dishes you put them in. I worry that I should have been cutting them down earlier, because they are going crazy after having cut them back. I've just been keeping the bed mostly weeded otherwise. I am really looking forward to trying out the 5 different varieties I've planted... A "helpful" worker threw away all of the markers I had for the garlic so I have no idea what variety is where this year. It will all be a surprise.
Lastly, I ordered some dahlias for this year. I'm going to build some new beds in the front yard for the tubers. Sandy has been wanting some more cutting flowers, and I think this will fit the bill.
I've planned and thought. Ordered and bought. Now it's time to go outside and turn the garden beds, add the fertilizers and compost, and get those seeds started. Here's hoping you are as excited about this spring and summer as I am.
Comments
Just be glad you aren't trying to start a garden in the Northwest, Dude! It's well into May here and we finally put some veggie seed in patio pots. The garden is just too soggy yet - another wet spring thanks to El Nino. We just hope it doesn't mean a repeat of last year's lousy cool and wet summer, where if anything did manage to grow, it rotted or got some fungal disease by September. Worst I've ever seen.
You should put a few sunflowers in your corn mix; I had sunflowers to 11 feet over 7 foot corn, with beans climbing them both and setting nitrogen, and squash as well. It worked well since all did great, but I had too many sunflower plants, and they muscled out the corn a bit for sunlight; it required some selective leaf pruning, so next time only one sunflower plant for every 4 feet of row. But it sure put on a show! And envious neighbor comments; now they will be disappointed if I don't do the same thing this year, as they love the view of the spectacular flowers high over the fence. My one grape cherry tomatoe plant was pushing 10 feet for some reason - that was weird but cool.
The wet summer allowed a black fungus to take out all my tomatoes in late September, so relatively few actually ripened. Never had that happen before in half a century of gardening/farming. Pray to your Sun God, Dude! (And maybe say one for me)
You're the one with the brains here. I'm wathicng for your posts.