Finally Something Planted!

Whew! Finally, we got the asparagus and strawberries in today. Between everything going on, especially our new baby boy, Bodhi, things are a bit behind.

We got our Jersey Supreme F1 asparagus and Jewel strawberries from Johnny's Selected Seeds up in Maine. I thought they arrived a tad early (first week in April), but then again, our schedule is way behind. We've kept everything moist in the meantime. The asparagus went in an existing bed in the northeast corner and we build one of what will be several new beds to hold the strawberries (see pics below).

The beds were dressed up with a heaping dose of leaf mold and freshly screened compost. What a pleasant surprise with the leaf mold. We have tons (and I mean TONS) of leaves and each year, I haul them back and make big huge mounds in the woods. I knew one day I'd use it. The pile I pulled from was from three years ago.

Here are some pictures of the asparagus crowns in the bed. I went down six or seven inches and placed the crowns on small mounds. Covered them up a few inches and voila, their in! Now we wait for shoots and the systematic back-fill of the soil.







With that done, I prepped the rest of the existing beds. Tomorrow I hope to plant a few different lettuces, radishes, and lots of spinach. I also need to get my peas in though without some of the additional new beds built, I might have to get creative. We'll see. In a few more weeks, I'll transplant the first round of tomatoes, get the cukes and first corn in, broccoli, peppers, beans, onions, and whatever else we have laying around.

How are your gardens going? You know what's amazing? I know of three people who are planting gardens for the first time this season. That is awesome and a testament to the growing awareness and dialog about good, local food. For me, it continues to be a learning experience: try, try again, and they try even more.

Here's to the start of the season!

Mid-Season Kickoff

Welcome. It's the third week in July and the garden is in full swing. So we're a tad late in launching this, but that's OK. No better time than the present. Here's the highlight reel of activities so far this year:

MARCH -- After three summers and the sporadic pots of flowers and vegetables, we make the decision to go for the full-blown vegetable garden. Buy seeds and start tomatoes (roma and beefsteak), eggplant, broccoli, peppers.

APRIL -- Build four 4x8 foot (10-inch high) raise beds in the back yard. Fill with loam and homegrown compost that had been cooking all winter. Plant peas, spinach, and mesclun

MAY -- Plant more spinach and mesclun. Plant first crop of lettuce (baby romaine and buttercrunch); zucchini, summer squash, pattypan squash, pole beans, carrots, and cukes. In a different section of the yard, we plant four Jersey blueberry bushes and four raspberry vines. Lament over not getting any asparagus crowns to plant.

JUNE -- Transplant tomatoes (adding a couple of mounded beds to accommodate the volume), broccoli and a couple of rogue squash-looking plants sprouting from seeds left over in the compost; plant a few rows of silverqueen corn (this is a true experiment). Plant cauliflower, more carrots, and new peppers (the seedlings never took off). Harvest lettuces. In yet another section of yard, start a pumpkin patch with three different varieties. Cross fingers in hopes of enough sun hitting that patch...

JULY -- Keep everything going. Think about what more we could get in the ground for a late summer and fall harvest (beets anyone?). Buy a couple rhubarb plants from the Sakonnet Growers Market.

Whew... that was a lot. But now you're up to speed. Already so many lessons learned (lots of notes in a notebook).

We hope you enjoy some of the pictures...