Beginning to Plant Garden!

On Friday evening we were able to disk up our garden, winds kept blowing, weather was warm and in the 80s! By Saturday afternoon it was dry enough to use the garden tiller, and we planted a few things in our garden: radishes, carrots, lettuce, spinach, 2 rows of sweet corn. Cora enjoyed this immensely, and had a great time getting dirty!


Then on Sunday afternoon we worked on planting the potatoes in the newly disked potato patch with Cora and my in-laws. Matt wanted a new place to plant potatoes and so he disked up an area about 50x100'. (this is purely a guess at the size - it could be way off!) We started by cutting potato chunks with eyes for planting, using 50# of Kennebec potatoes. Then dug a little trench using a handheld plow pulled by the 4Wheeler, added fertilizer and mixed it in, and started placing the eyes about a foot apart. We ended up with I think 13 rows of potatoes, and then 3 rows of yellow onion sets.

The calves in the next pasture came over to enjoy the shade and watch all the action:

Then after all the eyes and sets were planted, the guys used the hoe to cover them up.

Not a bad way to spend one of the first truly warm weekends outside! We will be enjoying these potatoes and onions this fall and winter! Homegrown potatoes really are MUCH more delicious than any you can buy at the grocery store.

Weeds

Weeding is one of my least favorite activities. We haven't planted our vegetable garden yet - probably won't be dry enough until middle of May. But, my flower beds around the house have started sprouting weeds, and it's time they got banished.

I find this job to be easier the day after a good soaking rain. It's easier to get the entire root system of the plant with the soft, wet ground, and with some weeds, if you don't get the whole tap root the first time, you are really IN for it. Like Jewel weed, if you don't get the whole taproot, just the first inch or so underground, that sucker will keep growing back bigger and bigger all summer.

My daughter had fun getting to "help" me. I gave her a little trowel to dig around with in the mulch, and she did a great job of getting wet and muddy!

This is the first year (we've lived her starting late summer 2005) I have actually started off the year on top of the weed situation. I surely hope to continue - the quicker I get control of the small plants, the easier my job will be! I still need to regain control of the strawberry beds, but we've got a good start!

Summer Garden Plans

I made an order from www.Gurneys.com for our plants for our garden. They had a coupon in there that expires tomorrow.

We are getting:

Green Beans
Spinach
Carrots
Lettuce Blend
Garlic
Yellow Onions
radishes
edamame
canteloupe
watermelon
peas
sunflowers
cosmos
daisies

We also always plant sweet corn, tomatoes, Kennebec potatoes, and we have a strawberry bed. Last year I started some purple asparagus.

I hope to do more freezing and preserving this year than in previous years.

Thinking of all this fresh produce to come is making me hungry!