April 2015 - Unseasonably Warm!

In all the stores selling vegetable plants you can see tomatoes, peppers and basil for sale.  With the wonderfully warm weather we've been getting this year, it's very tempting for a novice gardener to put these plants outdoors - after all, if they're selling them, it must be okay to put them out, right?  Not so.  These plants don't go outside until we have reliable nighttime temperatures of 10C.  And as for the basil, you don't dare plant it out until June as it's very touchy to cool weather.

My tomato and pepper plants are happily spending their time in the potting shed.  I'm not worried if the tomatoes get a little "leggy" as I can plant them right up to the bottom set of the first true leaves.  In the meantime, I'm making sure that their new homes outside will be ready for them when the time comes.  I've always known that tomatoes and potatoes are from the same family, but I recently learned that peppers come from this family as well.  This totally blows my garden plan right out the window as you shouldn't really plant these in the same bed in successive years.  Crop rotation means that you should wait until at least one year before planting in the same bed as a family member again.  So it's back to the drawing board!

The onions and leeks have now been planted and as I don't think I'll have enough Copra Onions from what I seeded, I picked up a package of yellow onion sets to fill up the bed.  This year I've planted Chinook Leeks in addition to Bandit.  Chinook are a summer harvest leek while Bandit is good in the cold weather.  Both are protected by pieces of fencing in case cats decide to try out the lovely loose soil!

The leeks are looking wonderful.  Last year I purchased 3 bulbs from Salt Spring Seeds to go with those I've saved from last year's harvest.  Leningrad, Czech and Spanish Roja are at the right of the garlic bed.  Leningrad has enormous cloves - there were only 4 on the bulb!

This year we took out one bed of asparagus and replaced it with new rootstock.  The older bed that remains is starting to show the first new spears and I've already helped myself to one delicious snack of raw asparagus!  The tiny seedlings at the left bottom of the picture are dill seedlings.  I finally have dill volunteers established in my asparagus after years of trying.  They are good companion plants and the dill keeps away the asparagus beetle.

In the snow pea bed, the young plants are just starting to climb their zig zag fence.  Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce plants have been nestled in the gaps.

When I turned over last year's Pacific Russet Potato bed, I discovered that one plant hadn't been dug up!  I found at least 9 lovely potatoes which had already started to sprout and moved them to a new home.  7 of the 9 plants are above the ground now and doing well.  We were very impressed with this potato last year and are delighted at the jump we've gotten on the potato season.  Another bed has Seiglinde Potatoes planted from purchased seed potatoes.

All in all, the garden is doing well.  It's very tempting to push the season and set out plants early, but I'm trying my best to avoid the urge.  And May isn't that far away after all!

The Seeds Are Here!

Seeds for the 2014 Garden

So that must mean that spring is fast approaching.  At least I'll tell myself that.  It's the end of January and there's still a lot of winter left.

I ordered seeds from T & T Seeds this year as they carry Health Kick Tomatoes.  I ordered 2 packages of them in case they're hard to find next year.  In addition, I'm trying out another paste tomato, Classica.  Just to finish off, I ordered a package of Pink Swirl Impatiens from the Super Elfin series.  Every garden needs some flowers and these will be great in pots around the pond.

The West Coast Seeds order is, of course, the big one and they had everything I asked for:

Beets - Cylindra
Carrots - Royal Cantenay and Scarlet Nantes
Corn - Bodacious
Kale - Improved Siberian & Redbor
Leeks - Bandit
Lettuce - Drunken Woman (!), Red Sails and Simpson Elite
Onions - Copra
Peas - Oregon Sugar Pod 2
Squash - Waltham Butternut
Swiss Chard - Silverado and Bright Lights
Tomato - Principe Borghese and Sweet Million

So now the planning begins!  Today I turned over another bed and mulched the garlic which is well up.  We checked out the Three Sisters bed which is on its last legs.  We'll be able to get one more year out of it and next year it will be replaced with one long bed which will be at least 4' wide.  I also checked out the bed that has cedar roots creeping in through a crack and sure enough, there are lots!  That bed will have to be dealt with next.  Then I need to sit down and decide what will go where.  Crop rotation is important and root crops need to be followed by non-root crops.  One of the new 4x4 beds will be for potatoes - just enough to satisfy the craving for those delicious new baby potatoes!

Plans!  The bed which is growing garlic will also host some early spring planting and I'm going to try getting some lettuce going now.  I'll start it in the house and once it's up, transplant it to pots in the potting shed.  When they're strong enough, they'll be planted in the garlic bed and protected with hot caps.

In February - that's next week! - I'll start kale, leeks and onions.  Near the end of the month, I'll get the tomatoes started.  I won't grow as many as last year, but concentrate on cherries and romas.  This year I'm determined to get several batches of salsa to go with the pasta sauces.  I also want to grow some on the deck and bought some really big pots from Lee Valley last fall along with special grids to go under them to protect the deck.  They'll grow cherries tomatoes and basil.

This is the really exciting time for gardeners - planning!  Soon enough will come the hard work.