April 10, 2020

Onward With The Garden, Better Late Than Never

So we decided to do a garden this year, even though last year was an unmitigated disaster. Last year I killed off my seedlings by over-fertilizing, then winds from a tornado blew apart the greenhouse, and then nothing grew because the weather was crazy.

Last week we decided to go full bore with planting because of the whole not going to the store because of social distancing thing, and then there's the possibility of inflation that could drive food prices up thing. So, on Tuesday, April 7th, my husband tilled and today, April 10th, the kiddo and I planted 9 out of 12 beds in the garden.

Tomatoes, peppers, and basil still haven't been started from seed yet, which isn't ideal but I've been too busy at work for it to impact me emotionally. Normally the lateness at starting the peppers and tomatoes would have me feeling a bit desperate.

My garden tends to be overplanted because of the high insect and wildlife pressure that exists, plants will die. It's a given.

This time around I did a lot of broadcast seeding for lettuces, greens, carrots, and bulb fennel. Then a hard-tined rake was used to lightly tamp the seeds down into the soil. I use this technique with good results for the tremendous amount of greens, radishes, and turnips I plant in the fall.

I'll probably still do some canning this year, but our main focus will actually be drying the vegetables. We've been eating a lot of internet purchased dried fruit, and my husband thought we could do the same with dried vegetables which can then be used in soups and casseroles.

8 comments:

Sue Garrett said...

I hope that you have more luck this year.

Phuong said...

I'm actually pretty excited for this coming growing season. I used up a bunch of old seed planting the garden, which is always good. And it's been awhile since we got such an early start with the garden, usually the rain thwarts tilling plans till mid-May.

Lucy Corrander Now in Halifax! said...

It seems you have a very dramatic gardening life.

Your scatter seed method, tamping then down with the rake, do you have these seeds all mixed in together?

Phuong said...

Hi Lucy,
Usually I plant a variety in a block, so there might be different varieties of carrots in a single bed but they're grouped together by type. A small child helped me with the planting, so things were a lot more haphazard this time around.

If I get patchy germination, I do go around and scatter seed of something else in-between just to fill up the space. One year a bunch of onions drowned and I scattered beet seeds around the surviving onions.

Dave @ HappyAcres said...

Well, it's a great time to plant a garden for sure! Here's hoping all our 2020 gardens help feed us. It's good to see you blogging too.

Phuong said...

Hi Dave,
I do hope the new growing season is a good one. It's been an oddly cool spring with gentle rains which will be good for cool weather crops. I just noticed the lettuces that were broadcast seeded are just starting to come up. Good to see that you're doing well, your greens and cole crops are overwintering wonderfully.

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