March Planting

After a lot of mad rushing about today, there is a nice little planting station on the side of the house and a garden gate to keep the dogs out. This s a vast improvement over the prior barricade - many thanks to the hubby! The fence is progressing, the second layer of mulch went down on about 1/2 the garden and the seeding station was set up in a sunny spot on the side of the garden closest to the kumquat trees.

And we got some seeds in the ground! Ok...not in the ground actually...but into their seedling pots at least. *grin* I  made up a nice big batch of garden soil, nitrogen and mulch mix in the big black tub that sits under the planting station and went to town. Here's what we planted: 

Broccoli de Rapa - 1/3 flat
Yellow Jubilee Tomato - 2/3 flat
Scarlet Nantes Carrots - 1/2 flat
Wisconsin SMR 58 Pickling Cucumbers - four pots (hills)
Marketmore 76 Cucumber - four pots (hills)
Parsnips - 1/2 flat
Borage - 1/2 flat
Sugar Snap Peas - 5 pots

The sugar snap peas are an guessing game - while the other packets said that this was an OK season to plant in (although the tomatoes need cover until they sprout), the peas are from a vendor at the farmers market and came in a self-labeled zip-lock bag with no instructions. I roughed up their endosperms (*giggle* - it's their outer layer) - apparently peas need you to scar it in some way to escape the bonds of their shells - and plopped four in each pot with some of the soil mix. With the rest of the seeds, I just followed the directions on the packet.

And we have a *lot* of seeds left over...

( Some pictures of the garden at this point in it's progress... )

Next steps include locating more seeds and perhaps some seed potatoes (might as well try some out, even though the weather is getting warmer) and to check through the local feed lots for heaping piles of rotted hay.

Finally, for seed organization I would like to come up with some sort of three ring binder with "card holders" so that I can pop the seed packets in there with note cards about when they went into the ground. This will help me track the yearly planting as we continue to garden and will help me chart what worked and what didn't.

At some point, I need to chart out the garden and set up a plan for how we'll be planting this year...

Seeds...

So garden sprites, what lovely heirloom seeds should we try out? I am interested in trying to find some types that might be historically "accurate" for us... *grin*

Edit 3/16/09:  Found my old list of "historic foods" from the RWA workshop I ran last year. Now, to figure out what modern varieties might "relate" to these historic ones...

 

Vegetable greens (Wortes): cabbage, Swiss chard, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli, chicory, endive, radicchio, spinach, sorrel, watercress, lamb's lettuce, dandelion, nettles, rocket, mustard greens, turnip greens, beet greens.

Roots: rapes (turnips) - the staple, salsify, radish, celery root, pasturnakes (carrots and parsnips), skyrwates/skirrits (water parsnip), scallions, onions, garlic, leeks.

Beans and Peas: peas, split peas, white beans, fava beans (broad beans), lentils, chickpeas (garbanzos).

Stalks and Vegetable Fruits: asparagus, celery, fennel, mushrooms, marrows/gourds (mostly varieties we would call summer squash and zucchini), cucumber, eggplant, artichoke, olives.

Grains: wheat, oats, barley, rye, buckwheat, rice, millet, spelt.

Fruit: apple, crabapple, pear, quince (very common), cherry, peach, apricot, nectarine, damson (plum) and prune, fig, date, pomegranate, orange, lemon, grapes, raisins, melon (such as honeydew and muskmelon/canteloupe), rhubarb, strawberry, currants (very common), gooseberry, bilberry, wild blackberries (but not cultivated), mulberries.

Nuts: almonds (a staple), filberts (hazelnuts), chestnuts, walnuts, acorns, sesame seeds, pistachios, pinenuts.

 

Anyone know what (if anything) they plant in the Kentwell gardens? I know that Monticello has a terrific historic garden, but that is at least partly because Thomas Jefferson's big thing was farming.

 

"Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever He had a chosen people, whose breasts He has made his peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue."—Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1785

Found my old list of "historic foods" from the RWA workshop I ran last year. Now, to figure out what modern varieties might "relate" to these... Anyone know what (if anything) they plant in the Kentwell gardens? I know that Montechello has a terrific historic garden, but that is at least partly because Thomas Jefferson's big thing was farming.