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First Look at our Garden Plans for 2012
It’s a little bit funny that we’re talking about our planting plans when we aren’t remotely close to having beds to plant in. However, we’re eternal optimists and are forging ahead with our planting plans, regardless of whether or not we ever actually get to implement them! I think we’ll have some very exciting things in the garden this year, assuming the construction goes well this spring.
Video Wednesday
Since time is getting shorter to plant vegetables for the fall garden (and since the weather seems to be getting slightly more moderate), here’s a quick video about some colorful options for the fall vegetable garden. If you’ve been hanging around this blog for very long, no doubt you have seen most of these veggies before!
First Workday in the Garden
We had our first Demo Garden workday of the season this morning. Everyone worked hard from about 10:30 until noon! There was really a lot more to do than I expected. (Hopefully our Compost committee will follow up with a workday, since we gave them a big pile of debris to compost!)
We started planting the Family of 4 Garden today, putting in some peas, cabbage, lettuce, spinach, and radishes.
We are using the original cattle panel trellis in the Family of 4 Garden this year. We put in the trellis and planted sugar snap peas along the edges. Then we planted some lettuce seeds under the trellis, just for fun. The green plants in front of the trellis are cabbage.
We also planted lettuce and spinach seedlings in the Family of 4 Garden. Normally we would just plant the seeds, but since we want to harvest quickly and then plant tomatoes in this area, we decided to start the seeds inside for a head start.
Meanwhile, in the “Early & Late Tomato Garden,” we planted some kale, bok choy, cabbage, and leeks that were left over from the Garden Show. (Actually, the leeks have been in the garden all winter, we just transplanted them.) These veggies will be in the garden until mid-June, when we plant our second round of tomatoes.
Garden Planning: Family of 4 Garden
This will be our 3rd year with the Family of 4 Garden, and I think it is going to look very different this year! It will be interesting to see how our financial tally turns out.
We are doing a lot of early spring planting this year! We’re going to have the typical spring veggies, as well as chard (again), beets, carrots, onions, cabbage, and potatoes. We’re putting sugar snap peas on another one of those trellises. Then, when all the spring vegetables are done, we’ll be planting summer crops. Some of the summer vegetables will probably be planted significantly later than the earliest possible date, but that’s okay too. Continuing the theme of the vertical garden, we’ll be planting cucumbers and cantaloupe on the trellis after the peas are done.
Friday PhotoEssay
Once again, things are growing fast in the garden this week, and we are finally getting a little bit of rain!
One of the apple trees was in full bloom earlier this week, but that’s past now. All the petals have dropped. It remains to be seen whether or not any of the flowers were pollinated.
The Chinese Cabbage is getting absolutely huge. It should be starting to curl up into a loose head any time now.
Compared to the tomato transplants, the peppers are looking as healthy as can be! It’s kind of a switch for me, since I usually have great luck with tomatoes and moderate with peppers. Everything would really like to be spending more time outside, but the wind has been a little much.
The radishes haven’t minded the weather one bit. In fact, I think the roots are just barely starting to swell. We should have radishes in another 10-14 days.
I did manage to sneak the peppers and tomatoes outside for a few hours one day though. Tucking them around the currant bushes shielded them from the worst of the wind.
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