Raspberries and Strawberries, Take 2

It has been so nice outside these last couple of weeks. It feels like June, even though it's only the middle of March. (I hope that doesn't mean bad things for August.) Yesterday, I worked hard weeding the strawberry bed again (the dandelions took over) and planted in the bare spots. It seems that the current plants are still producing runners, so I really shouldn't have ordered new ones. I really ended up planting only 5 of the Sparkle strawberry plants. I hope that my mom can find a place to plant the rest of them. The established plants are full of blooms and some have some very tiny berries. Yay!

In the meantime, my sweet husband moved the fence and retilled so that the raspberry canes are now protected from the dog. Once again, I planted 5, and I am really looking forward to raspberries this August. On a side note, as of today, the mustard, collards, chard, turnips, radishes, and romaine have sprouted. The garden is really starting to look alive once again.

March Pictures

Most of this bed is onion and leek plants. There is some spinach and beets that have sprouted, and today I planted carrots and scallions.

Last Thursday, we filled this bed with new mushroom soil. Today I planted the greens (kale, collards, mustard, turnips, chard), lettuce, and radishes. I need to stop by Ace this week and pick up broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, and brussel sprout plants.

The peas are about a couple inches tall as of today.

Onions & Leeks

Not too much to say today. It's been an interesting weekend that was almost a repeat of last April with storms that included tornadoes. Once again we were blessed. We did lose a shed, so a new shed including some nice garden storage/work area is in order soon.

My onion and leek order came in last Tuesday, so I made it my first priority this morning to get them into the ground. It took up almost a whole entire bed! I already have spinach and beets there, and there is enough room for a couple of rows of carrots, but that is it. I guess I will have to put the swiss chard in either with the other greens or with the legumes. We'll see how things work out. I will probably put the scallions in with my herb bed.

The peas have sprouted. Yay! I thought the spinach would have sprouted by now, but it hasn't. Oh well. I am using a new calendar/planning system called Sprout Robot. You enter what you want to grow and your zip code and it calculates when you should be planting what and takes you all the way through harvest. As you plant or whatever, you check it off and it recalculates. It's totally free and pretty cool so far. I didn't get to take pictures today, but I will try to do that this week.

Spring Karma

Every year I plan to properly prepare the garden beds for winter. In my mind, I am chopping fall leaves, broadcasting crimson clover for cover crops, pulling up stakes, and doing other general cleanup, etc. It all gets done . . . in my mind. And every year I pay for not following through with tons of weeds (mostly nasty henbit) that I have to pull and hoe before I can do any planting. This year is no exception. I did get one bed completely ready. It will need a new load of mushroom soil before I can plant the brassicas and lettuce, for that is what the greens love.

The root bed should be finished shortly. My sweet husband traded off with me to finish that bed. I started this one by planting a half row of spinach and beets. This week my onion order should come in, so I am hoping to make time this week to get those planted in there as well.

And so it begins...

Today I planted the peas and snow peas. I had so much to do this weekend that I was glad the bed they were rotating to was pretty much ready. I spent a little while doing a bit of weeding, pulling out the tomato cages, and resetting up the trellis for the little climbers. It's been so warm. Today was in the 60's, and it certainly wasn't the first time this year. It feel so good to be outside in the fresh air and sunshine.

2012 Seed & Plant Order

Pinetree Garden Seeds

• English Peas - Lincoln
• Snow Peas - Carouby de Maussane
• Carrots - Little Finger (early variety)
• Green Onions (Scallions) - Crimson Forest
• Spinach - Giant Noble
• Looseleaf Lettuce - Beleah Rose
• Pumpkin - Small Sugar
• Cilantro - Large Leaf

I ordered before relooking at last year's records, and I should have ordered mustard seeds too. Oh well...

Dixondale Farms

• Candy Onions (Intermediate Day)
• Lancelot Leeks

And as stated before I did get Sparkle strawberries and Heritage raspberries from Nourse Farms.

Time to refresh!

So another year has begun. I'm so happy for 2011 to be over. Although it was my best garden to date, I really struggled with parasite issues and other sickness. I'm definitely hoping for 2012 to be an amazing year!

I was so sick in the fall that unfortunately, I didn't get my beds prepped for winter as I would have liked. So today I went out and assessed the damage. I was surprised and elated that I still have leeks, scallions, and parsley that can still be harvested. The swiss chard may be okay, but it does look wilty from the freezes we've had the last couple of days. My biggest happiness is that the strawberries look just fine also, except for being very weedy. I am very fortunate that this has been a mild winter so far.

I tried to delicately pull the worst of the weeds from the strawberry bed and covered it with straw. I also added a bunch of straw to the compost as it has too much greens. This afternoon I am going to go over my seed inventory and make some orders. I already know that I'm going to order Heritage raspberries again (and put them inside the fence this time) and some Sparkle strawberries to extend my strawberry season from Nourse Farms. I'm also going to order onions and leeks from Dixondale Farms this year. I'm definitely not going to attempt to start seeds anymore until I have a more proper setup for it. It just wasn't working out, and the animals finished off the ones that were trying.