It rained again yesterday, and it seems our weather is likely to be unsettled for at least the next week or so. I’m sure nature is conspiring against us. Every time we make plans in the garden…whoosh! More rain. Oh well, it’s not slowing us down too much, and really, it is still winter! All our wet weather though has given us plenty of opportunity to plan the planting schedule for the gardens.
The rainy weather gave us plenty of time plan out our planting schedule for the year
We also had time to map our overall plan for the vegetable gardens.
Vegetable Garden Plan for 2010
All of our seeds for 2010 have arrived, with the exception of our Rocdor beans, but today I received an email from the distributor informing me that even they have now bean…I mean been…shipped.
Our collection of seeds for 2010
We still have some construction to do in part of the vegetable gardens, including building a retaining wall, and constructing our hybrid greenhouse/shed this summer. As we need to get some heavy equipment through part of the gardens this year, we’re only constructing half of the total raised garden beds this spring. The remainder will be built when construction is complete. Despite that, we still have quite an array of produce planned for the vegetable gardens in 2010, including:
Beans: Spanish Musica, Foremost (Green), Rocdor (Yellow Wax)
Beets: Red Ace, Golden
Broccoli: Blue Wind
Carrots: Scarlet Nantes, Rainbow Hybrid
Cucumber: Chelsea Prize (English)
Lettuce: Red Lollo, Grand Rapids, Red and Green Oakleaf
Misc Greens: Space Spinach, Tatsoi Asian Greens, Red Winter Kale, Five Color Silverbeet Swiss Chard
Onion: New York Early (storage); White Spear (bunching)
Parsnip: Javelin
Peas: Progress #9
Peppers: Carmen, Lipstick
Potatoes: Rose Finn Apple, Yukon Gold
Pumpkin: Baby Pam
Squash: Waltham Butternut
Tomatoes: Argentina, Illini Star, Texas Star, German Red Strawberry, Salisaw Cafe, Beam’s Yellow Pear, Cherokee Purple, Black Pear, Persimmon, Russian 117, Sungold
The tomatoes have all been started indoors, and are coming along quite nicely, along with the Carmen and Lipstick peppers.
All of our tomatoes have sprouted!
Our beets abound, and no doubt will outgrow their cell-packs in no time!
Our Red Ace beets are growing like weeds
The leeks even are off to a good start, and doomed to find their way into a number of dishes in the coming months.
Leek seedlings
In addition to vegetables, of course, a number of herbs will find their way to the gardens this spring, including Basil, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme.
Our rosemary plants are anxious to be transplanted into the gardens
To encourage pollinators to the gardens we’re also including a number of garden flowers that will be scattered around the vegetable gardens, including Goldenrod, Clary Sage, Borage, Bee Balm, Anise Hyssop, and Nasturtium.
Don't forget to entice hummingbirds, bees and butterflies into the vegetable garden!
However, if you plant Goldenrod, don’t be discouraged if it takes time to germinate. Goldenrod can be notoriously slow to sprout. Ours was no exception. However, our Goldenrod is now, after more than two weeks, just starting to emerge!
Our Goldenrod flowers are just starting to awaken for spring
Miraculously the sun is peeking through the clouds. It’s time to take advantage of a break in the weather, don some rubber boots, and dig some dirt!
Dear CV, I am very impressed at the way in which you are organised and at the number of seedlings that you currently have on the go. I imagine that the kitchen gardens look spectacular later in the season.
I was interested to read your comment about Golden Rod, Solidago, being difficult to germinate. In Hungary it grows everywhere in the countryside and is, for the most part, treated as a weed.
From what we’ve read, the difficulty with Goldenrod is that, at least for some species, the seeds must be very fresh to germinate at all. Germination rates for stored seeds decline precipitously. Certainly once established, this plant seems to have no difficulty propagating itself, including expanding from the root stocks.
I’d tried to get seeds for our native species Solidago californica, but a couple of nurseries I contacted said they’d been unable to germinate seeds from that species, so they don’t carry stock. As such we fell back to Solidago canadensis…now we’ll have to see how well it does here.
Wow.
You have Excel spreadsheets!
You have proper posh seed trays!
You have computer-designed bean diagrams!
I am officially a shambles in comparison. My plans for this year consist of planting a few odd-looking things in unlabelled packets by the moon cycle (a must for any self-respecting contadina out here), hoping that God will water them and something green will emerge, if prodded gently with a stick.
We’re lucky though – most things seem to take here direct in the soil (except carrots and parsnips).
And one day I will raise sufficient funds for a greenhouse so I can start early.
But I know, whatever I do, I’ll never ever be as impressively organised as you guys. There’s too much wine in our cellar as a distraction!
Well done – keep up the good work, keep posting the pics and keep being my inspiration :o)
Love Juls XXX
You are way too organized! 🙂
What an amazing amount of vegetables! That will be fun! I’ll be curious about the Goldenrod, I’ve heard the non-native one can be a tad invasive. Well, it sprouts easily from seed, that probably means it sprouts easily from seed… But it’s not truly horrible, more an interesting experiment.
I am impressed with your organization and planning! This time of the year is like being on the starting blocks, taking deep breaths, waiting for the race to begin. Your fabulous garden will certainly be a winner! Do you eat all that you produce, or do you also sell some of it?
I love a well planned garden. Your seedlings look like they can’t wait to be transplanted outdoors. I like how you are working to attract pollinators as well :^)
Your blog, and several others, have inspired me to get organized with my planning this year. Usually I have my seeds written out on a sheet of paper where I track germination, and then it gets shoved somewhere in the garden journal. And I draw out some pictures on graph paper for the plant rotation and placement in the beds. I love your color pictures! Can’t wait to see what your garden looks like.
I am so impressed at how organized you are. Sounds like it will be a great season for you.
I love what a stash of rainy days can do to gardeners with itchy fingers! I, too have sketchbooks of diagrams, lists and dog-eared catalogs that help tide me over until I can grab a shovel again. Enjoy the hands-on and way to go with all that germination!
There is so much to learn from you CV! I don’t think I’ll ever be half (or even a tenth) as organised!
I will be (of course!) watching your experienced hands raise those tomatoes this year and am also interested in fiding out more about the beets and leeks as I would like to try those one day too.
I like your organization. I don’t even have my seed ordered yet!! I do have a list and a plan, though 🙂
Your garden sounds like it will be beautiful! I have one pea plant struggling in my back yard, one kale that is going crazy, and two little tomato plants out front. LOL. Ah, well, I’m happy to even have those.
It is good to be organised with gardening… and yours is extremely good, bordering to perfection… ~bangchik
Lovely sprouting pictures! Also great organization plans for the seeds. I’m trying to figure out what bug spray to use once the warm weather hits. I found some organic spray online, but was wondering what you recommend.
What very elegant planting plans and photos.
Esther
I can only hope our garden turns out half as good as it looks on paper!
Melina, I used to use Safer brand insecticidal soaps. Certainly if you have a severe infestation of an undesirable on your plants, it’s perhaps the least harmful commercial brand. However, I find it’s a slippery slope, and I don’t want to harm the beneficial insects that prey on the problem pests. Often a strong jet of water on the affected plants is sufficient, especially for soft-bodied insects like aphids.
If particular pests are a recurrent problem, like carrot rust fly, simple things like rotating crops, growing under agricultural fabrics, and good cultural practices can go a long way to fixing the problem. Good luck!
Hey Clare,
So….I’m thinking… how ’bout Original Sin Bakery Cafe featuring Curbstone Valley produce? And, if you get over-run in eggs, we could use those too. I could be your farm’s first customer!
Wow,you are organized! I haven’t even started planting seeds yet, although I did pick up the soil. Thanks btw for welcoming me to Blotanical.
Chef Tanya, I think that sounds like a great idea. I fully expect an excess of basil and tomatoes this summer, and we’re hoping everything else does well too! How many eggs can you use at once? Once the new chicks come into lay, I expect we’ll be overrun by September!!! 😛