Springtime and Gardening

This time of year is busy! Especially if spring comes a month earlier than usual. Laura Engalls Wilder said it best in Farmer Boy: “There was no time to lose, no time to waste in rest or play. The life of the earth comes up with a rush in the springtime. All the wild seeds of weed and thistle, the sprouts of vine, bush and tree, are trying to take the fields. Farmers must…plant the good seeds quickly.”

That’s how things have been around here. We’ve had such warm days compared to last year when we got lots of snow in March. So here’s the update on gardening.

At the first of the month, I planted seeds indoors. The only seeds I start inside anymore are tomatoes and peppers because squash and pumpkins seem to do just fine started from seed in the garden. I planted about ten varieties of tomatoes and ten of peppers – from sweet peppers to very hot.

I also tried different methods of starting the seeds. I filled an aluminum roaster with soil medium, made lines with a ruler in the dirt and planted a few seeds of each variety in the rows. So far, I’m not too impressed with that method.

I also tried coir pots instead of peat pots – less damaging for peat bogs. The tomatoes in the coir pots seem to do just fine. Coir, BTW, is from coconut husks – thus renewable.

I planted two different methods in those little “greenhouses” that you get at the store – one in peat pots and one in plastic cubicles. They both seem to be growing about the same, but we’ll see what happens when it’s time to transplant – either into bigger peat pots or the garden. I tried both tomatoes and peppers in all the different methods.

The actual planting medium was two different kinds. First, were those little planting cubes that you add water and they expand. They’ve done very well. The other was our own mixture of peat moss and compost from our compost pile – I used that in the little peat pots and the coir pots. They’ve also done well.

I also labeled everything carefully. It’s so easy to get plants confused when you either transplant them or move them into the garden. You don’t want to mis-label a pepper, cook it up, and have everyone gasping for water if you thought it was a sweet pepper and it wasn’t.

After everything is planted in the little pots, spritz with water, put a lid or plastic wrap over the top. Place them in a warm, dark place (I put them next to the woodstove) and let the seeds work their magic. You’ll know there’s enough moisture in there if water condenses on the lid.

After 7-10 days, there are little sprouts. Take off the lid, move the seedlings to the brightest, sunniest place in the house. We started using a grow light a year ago, and that really helps the plants not get so leggy before it’s time to plant outside. Position the grow light about 2” from the seedlings.

At the same time, things were warming up outside, so I took the straw mulch off the garlic. We put the mulch on the garlic beds last fall, and that insulates them well. When I took off the mulch, little garlic shoots were already poking up through the soil. We planted twice as much garlic last fall, and twice as many varieties, so I’m pretty excited for the garlic to be ready in about 4-5 months.

We also got a big load of sheep manure. We’ve tried all kinds – cow, horse, goat, sheep – and the sheep manure is really the best. So we put some of it in this year’s compost bin

to fill out the compost, then we dumped the rest on the Three Sisters bed (remember the corn, beans and squash bed?).  We’ll get one more load to add to next year’s compost bin so it can compost over the summer and winter.

The next step was to prepare the raised beds for planting. We had to reconfigure the garden this year. With gardening, there is never enough space, so gardeners just keep making more places to plant. I’m sure we’re about maxed out for watering capabilities…

Anyway, we're not maxed out yet! SoWalt built a new raised bed – 12’x3’. We had to move one of the older raised beds to make room. So we took all the soil (it’s not dirt in a raised bed) out of the old bed, moved the bed, put all the soil, along with more peat moss and new compost, back in the old bed. Then we placed the new raised bed.

First, we put down a layer of newspaper. That keeps the existing grass and weeds from growing into the bed.

We have four older beds that needed replenishing, so we took some of the soil from each of those beds to add to the new bed. Then we put some new peat moss and compost in each bed, and tilled it all in. We use one of those wonderful Mantis tillers to work everything in.

There are many advantages to raised beds: you don’t walk on them, so the soil never gets compacted. You can make your own soil mixture – peat moss, compost, whatever you prefer. You still have to kneel on the ground to plant or weed, but you can make your beds as high as you want to cut down on bending over. You can plant things closer together so you get more yield per square foot of garden. You weed less. You use less water, especially if you use drip irrigation. And it’s just a wonderful feeling to have those garden beds all composted, tilled and ready to plant.

Note the straw mulch around all the beds. It really keeps the weeds and grass down.

So, happy gardening! There’s no time to lose!

Random picture of baby rhubarb