Monday, April 11, 2011

First plantings!

Tom got the garden tilled Saturday.  It is about 24'x36' and we are planting traditional rows this year at Tom's request.  I love my lasagna/square foot gardening, but the garden where I have done that in the past is currently occupied by goats, and Tom was feeling nostalgic and wanted to see a traditional row garden, sooo...  here we go!  Hopefully it will work out well.  I am a little nervous since it is a new spot and method I haven't used in years.

Heather planted spinach, lettuce and peas in the L-shaped beds of the small garden on Saturday also.  A bit later than usual, but the weather has been irrational lately - frost and 40 for the high and then 80 the next day.  They may still do fine.

Today the girls and I planted out the early crops:  lettuce, cabbage, onion, beets, carrots, eggplant, kale, collards, broccoli, cauliflower, cucumber, swiss chard, and brussels sprout.

I used a garden planner software which I found very helpful and less time consuming than my own drawings and spreadsheets.  It can be found at this link.  I am going to try to figure out how to post a screen shot of my plan here, but haven't yet had time.

This morning, I also tilled up most of the side yard and this evening Will planted grass seed for us!  The grass was pretty much gone after the chickens ate away at it all fall and winter.  I look forward to some nice green grass.  He had such fun running the spreader around - it may not turn out exactly uniform, but he got the job done.  :-)

A couple weeks ago, we were given quite a group of thornless blackberries and some black raspberries.  We put the blackberries adjacent to the small garden where the others were, and ended up adding some fenced area as the deer had already found them.  We planted a long row of raspberries behind the house,  running parallel to it and coming up to the clothesline and adjacent to the kiwi arbor.  They seem to be doing very well and have not yet been found by deer.

We are going to be on vacation soon for 10 days and I can't wait to come home and see how things have grown. A good friend is house/animal sitting for us and will water the garden and yard too.  It will be fun to be surprised by the growth when we return!

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