I am having my pap this afternoon, as well as an IUD implanted. The first not being overly traumatic, the second, I’ve never had one before so I am a little nervous about having a copper tv antennae stuck in me for birth control (pardon the mental imagine…) More then anything though this will be my first time being away from Ivy and honestly, I have a bit of separation anxiety. I wasn’t away from Damian until he was almost a year old. I have a bottle of pumped breast milk in the fridge though and Andrea is coming over to hang out with Michael, Damian and Ivy while I’m gone. I’m sure everyone will be fine, but I still wish it was tomorrow already.
But to keep my mind off all that, let’s talk about my Spring garden plan! If you click the image you can see the little details, no key since I know what all the little images mean, but to give you an quick overview.
- Peas, Amish Snap. Lots of them, maybe too many, but Michael swears that there is no such thing. Besides, they freeze beautifully. They will be growing on the two trellises at the ends of the 4×8s and growing on a teepee in Damian’s bed (the 4×4 bed.) I need to buy soil inoculant still though, because there is nothing like boosting production of an already prolific plant!
- Radishes, Early Scarlet Globe. All around Damian’s peas. I am going to plant them in one week intervals so I don’t end up with 200 radishes at once. I can haz overkill? This variety matures in 30 days, so the beds will be empty by the time it comes to plant corn, beans and squash in it.
- Carrots, Saint Valery. Two rows, each separated by two weeks. They store and freeze well, but I still prefer them fresh.
- Turnips, Purple Top White. I tried these last year and had less then stellar germination but as I have leftover seeds I’m going to retry a few square feet of them. I adore turnips.
- Spinach, Boomsdale. Really tasty, and there is no such thing as too much spinach in my book. Love it!
- Lettuce, Forellenschuss. This is said to be a hardy romaine that also does well in summer heat. We will see. More staggered planting here, a square foot or two a week. I’m starting these indoors, in the next week or two hopefully. I still need to set up a light and maybe buy a seed starting tray, the kind with the clear domed lid.
- Kale, Ragged Jack. Just two plants. I like kale, but not that much. Lots of yummy nutrients though and excellent fried with bacon (which might negate some of that nutritional value but I maintain bacon is healthy for the soul.) I’m starting these indoors as well.
And that is the Spring garden. As you can see, it is all pretty much condensed into one bed, mostly because the 4×4 and second 4×8 haven’t been built yet. One step at a time. Next up, the Summer garden plan
(A sunflowers from last summer’s garden.)
I ordered my seeds from Seed Savers Exchange today. The order can be split into two categories, child and adult. I don’t think you are ever too young to play in the dirt! I’ve decided to build a 4×4 foot bed for Damian since he has shown an interest in my putterings around the yard. I let him go through my seed catalog and pick several favorites.
He also loved the sunflowers but I already have seeds for those. I think his choices will work our well in a single bed as a Three Sisters garden, which is a Native American style of planting. Corn for the pole beans to grow up and squash as a ground cover to conserve moisture. In the Autumn the beans are cut off at the base to let the nitrogen in their roots release into the soil.
As for the other “adult” raised beds, I ordered:
I also ordered Tom Thumb Peas but I will be growing those in containers. Damian picked the purple pod pole beans too, but I just wanted some variety of snap bean so I didn’t mind. I actually think the purple pods will be easy to find and pick among the green leaves. Both the radishes and carrots are reorders as I am doing successive sowings with them and will run out of my current stock part way through the season. I want to try to overwinter some carrots to save the seeds from too (they are a biannual.) This is also my second year growing Black Krim tomatoes. Laurie gave me a transplant last year and I really love the variety. They don’t produce very heavily but they taste amazing. This will be my first time starting tomatoes from seed.
I have seeds leftover from last year (mostly lettuces, bitter greens and more pole beans) but I am keeping my crop list short again this year. I want another year to get use to growing in this climate since I am focusing on having crops from early Spring through late Autumn. I also need to save some gardening budget for building those extra raised beds, trellises and sturdy tomato cages (heirlooms need them,) not to mention good soil (which the corn will definitely need)
Have you ordered any seeds yet?
This year my main gardening focus is on successive sowing. I would like to have Spring, Summer and Autumn crops. This of course entails a lot of research on my part and what is becoming a small tidal wave of lists and chart.
While there are so many things that I would love to grow, I am trying to keep my plant selection realistic this year. Snap peas, radishes, lettuce, spinach and maybe kale in the Spring. Tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, pole beans, squash and maybe watermelon in the Summer. More kale, lettuce, spinach and radishes in the Autumn. I want to try doing successive sowings of carrots from Spring to Autumn and of course sunflowers along the fence again. I have a least one more raised beds to build before half that stuff can go in though. I also have a thought of building a little 4×4 bed for Damian. If it doesn’t do well it won’t be the end of the world, but I think there are some things he would enjoy watching grow. Strawberry popcorn, pole beans, pumpkins… A three sisters garden maybe?
I would love to spend a little time developing the rest of the yard outside the raised beds this year as well. Once the garden is in that will be one of my focuses. While I have no great love of grass it does have it’s uses, a place for my children to roll around. Our grass is scraggly and patchy, I want to try to fix that. There are also several areas that beg for some color, some herbs, some flowers. First our fence must be repaired though (which the landlord will be doing come Spring.) I don’t want any new beds amaged by the repair work!
For now though I plan, and since you all make such a great sounding board I think I will start sharing more of my plans, both long and short term here. But Ivy just woke up so I’ll wrap this up. Everything runs on a baby schedule here.
What are you planning on growing this year?
The temperature rose all the way to 50°F yesterday! In January! In Spokane! And we have had above 40°F weather for well over a week now and forecast for the foreseeable future. My parsley has grown back! My grass is almost to a cutting length in some places! Trees are budding that should not be budding yet! Apparently it has to do with his El Nino year and we should have a mild Winter.
Now my fellow gardeners, if you were faced with this kind of weather in January what would you do? Toss some cold weather crops in your (completely thawed!) raised beds just to see what happens? After all my row cover cloth is rated down to 24°F… Maybe some radishes, carrots or turnips? Or maybe some cold hardy lettuce, spinach or kale? I’m temped, sorely tempted.
If anything this weather has motivated me to pull out my garden folder and begin planning and making up some seed mats. I think I will put a few seeds in the ground too. If they fail, so be it. If not, radishes in February!
Yesterday the sun was out for the first time in a few days and the deck had dried enough for me to sweep up all the elm leaves. I swear that tree has dropped 80% of it’s leaves in just the days. Damian thinks falling leaves are awesome, once I had swept them all into a corner Damian planted himself right in the middle of the pile with his kettle and stuffing them in it and throwing them in the air. Elm leaf tea anyone?
With our early cold shock this year and then our neighbor’s cat’s apparent addiction to carrots and kale greens, the Winter garden has not faired well. I have decided to retired it for the season and hope to have better luck with the help of chicken wire next year. I mulched it with leaves from the deck since I figured the deck leaves are most likely to be weed free, because let’s face it, I don’t like weeding!
I am glad that I swept the leaves up yesterday, today we are having our first snow of the season. It is not sticking but our deck is quite slippery when covered with soppy leaves. This afternoon I have another appointment with my midwife and then we are going to carve our pumpkin for Halloween. In other words, stay tuned for photos of Damian playing with squishy pumpkin guts!
I’m curious, are you celebrating Halloween? What are you (or your children) dressing up as?
