Garden Update – 4/17/2012

Once again, it’s gardening season. And once again, I plan on spouting (or would that be sprouting?) all my angst from the garden here semi-weekly, or whenever I get around to it. This year my plans on the garden are to try to grow vegetables/plants that the squirrels haven’t eaten too many of in the past. That means no tomatoes and no pumpkins, and hopefully the rest will make it through. Here’s the plan I have so far, and what I’ve already gotten started.

Garlic
The “winter” did nothing to the garlic, and the shoots for most of the cloves I planted are pretty high. I took off most of the mulch around the plants, as I want to get as much of my fish fertilizer down into the soil as possible when I water them. These should be ready in July.

Garlic

Peas
These have done okay in the past, as long as the rabbits stay out. When we got back from Tampa in late March the soil temperature was already close to 50 degrees, so I decided to put a short row of peas in the ground to get started on the season. Then it turned cold and didn’t get much above the low 50’s. Usually the peas start to sprout in 7-10 days, but after 2 weeks I saw nothing coming up. I decided I’d replant that row, but left them for 1 more week…and the day before I was going to replant the original planting started coming up. I planted a 2nd row of peas last weekend, so we should have plenty of sugar and snap peas in the months to come.

My two rows of peas on the right.

Peas sprouting up

Lettuce
I also planted 3 variety of lettuce in March: Romaine, Spinach, and Mixed Greens. Like the peas, these took a while to start growing, but last week they started sprouting. I put in another row of each last weekend as well.

Small seedlings of lettuce

Potatoes
The potatoes I got last year were really successful, so I wanted to do some more this year. I found both Yukon Gold and Red Potatoes this year, and I decided to plant both. I moved my potato plot to another raised bed this year, as I read that potato rot can form in the soil after 1-2 years of potatoes planted in the same place. It’s a little bit smaller than the one I normally use, but I fit them all in this past weekend without much trouble. Hopefully they won’t be too close together.

4 rows of potatoes

Peppers
My peppers usually don’t get eaten by those pesky critters, and last year was pretty successful, although I still don’t think I get enough sun for my plants. Either way I plan to have several pepper plants for the summer.

Summer Squash
Sage loves Summer Squash, and 2 years ago I got lots of squash from just a couple plants, so I’ll try this again.

Tomatoes
Sage wants to try some tomatoes in one of those Topsy-Turvy containers. I said go at it, but I’m convinced the squirrels will find a way to get at those anyway.

Herbs
With so many of our vegetables getting eaten, we’ve decided to try to focus on herbs a lot this year. We always have basil growing, but we plan to also get some rosemary, thyme, and oregano in the garden this year. Sage took over this responsibility and bought an indoor starter kit for the herbs. They’ve all sprouted already, and she’ll move them outside when the weather permits.