If you live in a place where winters having you singing, "Do you want to build a snowman?" you'll know that the best time to make a garden plan is the coldest, snowiest day in January or early February. This has been a weird winter so far--not too much snow and I've sported my calf-length down coat with the faux fur-trimmed hood only a couple of times. I welcome the milder version of this season, but even I can admit that it hasn't seemed quite right to plan the garden without the winter fatigue that usually has me searching for cheap flights to Sarasota.
We finally had a significant amount of snow a few weekends ago! The normal criteria for garden planning weren't met, despite the snow: the temperature was well above single digits, there were no warnings from weather forecasters about potential frostbite for uncovered skin, and I was still feeling pretty chipper, but it was still a great time to think ahead to garden season 2020. We (ahem, that is Mr. H.) cleared the snow and decided our plans involved staying put for the rest of the weekend. Out came the garden catalogs and our notepads.
We continue to learn from our forays into square-foot gardening, and that's as it should be. Many things worked last year, but many we found to be dissatisfying as well. Brussels sprouts? Spectacular to see, but our growing season isn't long enough to get a full crop. We've tried for two years and aren't going to try again. Planting in the back by the stone wall? It doesn't get enough sun and the sprinkler doesn't reach that far (it's too much to water by hand). On the other hand, we love garden tomatoes and know they work well in our plot, we never can get our fill of lettuce and other kinds of greens, and garden carrots are very easy (a "set it and forget it" crop!) with so many varieties that you'd never see in the market, even our co-op store. This year, we are focusing on things we like and have every reason to believe will succeed.
We've also had some issues with taller things crowding out shorter things in our square-foot beds and some areas of our beds getting more sun than others. We're messing around with placement this year to see if we can take better advantage of where the sun falls, putting some lettuce in the shadier squares to see if we can continue to get good harvests of that as summer progresses.
After we marked out spots for everything on our list, there were some open squares. Mr. H. couldn't help himself and tucked a few challenges into the plan: romanesco and zucchini. Zucchini is a guaranteed success, but it is "such a hog," as my friend said. Romanesco is quite fun, but all of the effort gets you so few heads. We'll see!
We also sorted through the seed stash, knowing that some of the seeds we have are too old and just need to be tossed. Some are worth trying with a germination test (like the black krim tomato seeds that we saved ourselves) and some are still totally fine. We have a few packets to purchase (and I will do so now that we're back from our little bourbon tasting trip to Kentucky), but many of our plantings will come from our existing stash.
Thinking ahead a couple of months, I'm also doing something new this year and saving loo rolls (toilet paper tubes, but LOO ROLL is much more fun) to use for starting seeds! I've seen a couple of different ways to go about this: you can either use the tube itself packed with growing medium, or use the tube to mold cups from newspaper sheets. I have time to investigate further as we probably won't start seeds for a couple of months.
UPDATE, 1/30: I ordered seeds today! Can't wait to receive the following from Territorial Seed Co:
We finally had a significant amount of snow a few weekends ago! The normal criteria for garden planning weren't met, despite the snow: the temperature was well above single digits, there were no warnings from weather forecasters about potential frostbite for uncovered skin, and I was still feeling pretty chipper, but it was still a great time to think ahead to garden season 2020. We (ahem, that is Mr. H.) cleared the snow and decided our plans involved staying put for the rest of the weekend. Out came the garden catalogs and our notepads.
We continue to learn from our forays into square-foot gardening, and that's as it should be. Many things worked last year, but many we found to be dissatisfying as well. Brussels sprouts? Spectacular to see, but our growing season isn't long enough to get a full crop. We've tried for two years and aren't going to try again. Planting in the back by the stone wall? It doesn't get enough sun and the sprinkler doesn't reach that far (it's too much to water by hand). On the other hand, we love garden tomatoes and know they work well in our plot, we never can get our fill of lettuce and other kinds of greens, and garden carrots are very easy (a "set it and forget it" crop!) with so many varieties that you'd never see in the market, even our co-op store. This year, we are focusing on things we like and have every reason to believe will succeed.
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| Preliminary garden layout |
After we marked out spots for everything on our list, there were some open squares. Mr. H. couldn't help himself and tucked a few challenges into the plan: romanesco and zucchini. Zucchini is a guaranteed success, but it is "such a hog," as my friend said. Romanesco is quite fun, but all of the effort gets you so few heads. We'll see!
 |
| Pawing through the seed stash |
Thinking ahead a couple of months, I'm also doing something new this year and saving loo rolls (toilet paper tubes, but LOO ROLL is much more fun) to use for starting seeds! I've seen a couple of different ways to go about this: you can either use the tube itself packed with growing medium, or use the tube to mold cups from newspaper sheets. I have time to investigate further as we probably won't start seeds for a couple of months.
UPDATE, 1/30: I ordered seeds today! Can't wait to receive the following from Territorial Seed Co:
- Tomato: Berkeley Tie Die
- Tomato: Indigo Blue
- Tomato: Costoluto Fiorentino
- Tomato: Gold Medal
- Carrot: Rondo
- Carrot: Caracas
- Spinach: Lakeside
- Kale: Nero di Toscana
(I also ordered a Garden Ninja. Don't tell Mr. H!)
Looks great! Those are some fancy tomatoes planned!
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