Is it spring yet?

I was wandering around this past weekend without a jacket, so it certainly seems like spring. We’ve started to order seeds – though I need to find a source for purple seed potatoes – so that makes it seem like spring. There’s only a tiny bit of snow anywhere, so that looks springlike, right?

But it’s not yet March, and I live in the northeast. It’s not spring until May, most years. You don’t plant without some sort of covering until Memorial Day weekend (May 30th, this year). And our last frost date is in mid-May.

Still, I can start planning. Planning is easy.

So what should I plant this year?

P.S. My kale lasted till mid-February again this year before it started to turn brown on the tops. Definitely planting kale again.

P.P.S. We still have a few apples from our biggest tree sitting on the kitchen counter.

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Yesterday I planted kale!

Tonight, I’m going to plant kohlrabi!

Left on my list of brassicae to buy: mustard (for seed, I don’t like eating bitter greens <.<) and broccoli.

And I’m going to plant some turnips (Brassica rapa subsp. rapa)…

The list so far:
Horseradish, daikon radish, turnip (Brassicaceae family)
Cauliflower in three colors
brussels sprouts
bok choy
kale
kohlrabi
mustard
Broccoli

Any I’m missing? 😀

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Tuesday, I put more brassicae in the ground!

This time it was a row of Brussels Sprouts, which despite growing like a tall stick of vegetation, require like 18″ of spacing. I like planting stuff close together – French Intensive Gardening or Square Foot Gardening style – so spacing things that far apart is weird. But they don’t seem to thrive without the space.

Then a row of cabbage. Cabbage! We’ll see if we actually eat it…

I’ve got room for one more row in this bed. I think it’ll be half kale and half broccoli.

Gooooooo Team Brassica!

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Today I leveled (mostly) one of my 12″ deep raised beds, by digging a hole down to the bottom of the 2′ stake and then hammering the thing down with a mallet. Whee! HulkLyn Smash!

Then I used the backfilled hole to plant a Horseradish, because a 2′ deep hole filled with loose dirt and peat is about the nicest, deepest hole I’m gonna get for a root plant like that.

Once I’d hauled over some more compost-dirt mix and peat moss and mixed the whole thing up like a particularly giant brownie mix, I started putting in the rest of the plants, yay! (well, first I laid down ground cloth).

This is Brassica Bed One – We’re not growing many nightshades this year, to defeat the blight problem we’ve been having, so we’re overcompensating with All Dah Brassicaceae. First in is a multi-color mix of cauliflower and then a four-pack of purple cauliflower. When I go back out, a row of baby bok choy. Whee!

It helps, I suppose, that we really like EATING brassicaeae.

Image Source

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The Meme

kelkyag asked: Garden Plans?

Garden!

Well, at this time of year, I need to get some cardboard and more mulch over the carrots to overwinter them, and come up with something to do with the last of the kale.

Over the winter, I am contemplating a three-bay compost bin. Our current compost bins are about as simple as can be made: a circle of chicken wire (or the plastic version, in one case) held up with three sticks.

What I’m thinking of doing, probably from scrap wood, are three boxes each sharing a side (Something like this: http://www.besthorsestalls.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/compost-bin-01.jpg, but less large all around), with the front of each box being fold-down or screw-off, and the three back sides being lined with chicken wire or the like. This gives me two bins to rotate every year, and then a third “slow burn” for things like bones & kitty litter.

As for next year? Only one tomato plant, probably only one pepper. Giving the ground a chance to recover from the tomato blight.

Lots of brassicas! Those did really well this year.

And I’m going to mound the squash next year, and hope that does me better.

That’s enough garden planning for early December in the North, I think. <3

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We have 8 4×6 raised beds against the garage in two 4-bed rows, made of 1×8″ locust boards.

We bought – late in the season because of shenanigans – locust enough to raise 4 of the beds up to 16″ (The posts were left tall last year for that purpose) and – even later in the season – compost/topsoil mix to fill them.

Saturday, I hauled approx. 100 gallons of dirt (mostly in 5 gallon buckets) to get one bed filled up to the top & transplanted a couple of plants that had been waiting (one poor little tomato plant is like 8″ tall and already giving me one solitary tomato).

Yesterday, I was working on leveling the back beds up to their first boards before adding in the second row. I stood on the front board to smooth out some dirt…

…and the board tipped backwards out of its screwholes, neat as you please.

Whoops.

Longer screws, more screws, board replaced. But seeing all the roots there was kinda neat. Maybe my next project, I’ll make clear plexi raised beds.

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