Sowing the Seeds
The boring part of today was pulling more weeds out of the last section of bed around the patio area (a leftover task from yesterday). The frustrating part of today was running out of compost before we could finish amending said bed, leaving a task incomplete until the tree dump opens again on Tuesday (provided we have access to a truck, that is).
The great part of today? Sowing the fall veggie seeds!
This is only a small section of the beds that we sowed today, but it's the most interesting one to look at because we put up the trellis and pea netting. Kirk built it for our old garden and made it take-apart-able, so it was all ready to go after a season packed up in the garage. The ladder is there because we needed some height from which to bring the sledgehammer down upon the posts, but it went back together great, after the annoyance of untangling the netting and threading the posts through it (much less arguing about that this time around, though, so hooray for marital harmony).
As you may have guessed, peas will climb the netting: snap peas on the right half and regular peas on the left. We'll add another trellis to the left of that next week sometime when we get that last bed prepped, and then we'll have a succession planting of those two types of peas.
In front of the trellis is a cold frame, also built by Kirk for the old garden. It slants to angle the glass covers southward, toward the sun—these are old windows that will be added when it is actually cold out. In this we have (or hopefully will have, future tense) arugula, kale, mache, mustard greens, carrots, beets, turnips, mesclun, and spinach. As with the trellis, we'll add a second cold frame to the left of this one and sow a succession planting of these same things and see how far through the winter they get. We'll probably sow a third set of these guys in a non-cold frame area that we'll harvest and eat before frost.
Elsewhere in the patio beds we've planted ridiculous amounts of cabbage, broccoli, lettuce (Romaine, Buttercrunch, and Prizehead), carrots, radishes, bok choy, cilantro, dill, bush beans, and brussels sprouts. I went ahead and planted a ton of beans now, figuring we don't have that much time left for a warm-weather succession planting (although I'll probably get some more in the ground in the next week or two). I'll blanch and freeze a bunch for the winter when (if) they come in. Ditto for the broccoli; extra cabbage will be made into sauerkraut. Also, the brussels sprouts are probably a reach since they take a long time to mature (100+ days means into November). It's supposed to taste better harvested after a frost though, so I figured we'd give it a try. Seeds are cheap.
The great part of today? Sowing the fall veggie seeds!
This is only a small section of the beds that we sowed today, but it's the most interesting one to look at because we put up the trellis and pea netting. Kirk built it for our old garden and made it take-apart-able, so it was all ready to go after a season packed up in the garage. The ladder is there because we needed some height from which to bring the sledgehammer down upon the posts, but it went back together great, after the annoyance of untangling the netting and threading the posts through it (much less arguing about that this time around, though, so hooray for marital harmony).
As you may have guessed, peas will climb the netting: snap peas on the right half and regular peas on the left. We'll add another trellis to the left of that next week sometime when we get that last bed prepped, and then we'll have a succession planting of those two types of peas.
In front of the trellis is a cold frame, also built by Kirk for the old garden. It slants to angle the glass covers southward, toward the sun—these are old windows that will be added when it is actually cold out. In this we have (or hopefully will have, future tense) arugula, kale, mache, mustard greens, carrots, beets, turnips, mesclun, and spinach. As with the trellis, we'll add a second cold frame to the left of this one and sow a succession planting of these same things and see how far through the winter they get. We'll probably sow a third set of these guys in a non-cold frame area that we'll harvest and eat before frost.
Elsewhere in the patio beds we've planted ridiculous amounts of cabbage, broccoli, lettuce (Romaine, Buttercrunch, and Prizehead), carrots, radishes, bok choy, cilantro, dill, bush beans, and brussels sprouts. I went ahead and planted a ton of beans now, figuring we don't have that much time left for a warm-weather succession planting (although I'll probably get some more in the ground in the next week or two). I'll blanch and freeze a bunch for the winter when (if) they come in. Ditto for the broccoli; extra cabbage will be made into sauerkraut. Also, the brussels sprouts are probably a reach since they take a long time to mature (100+ days means into November). It's supposed to taste better harvested after a frost though, so I figured we'd give it a try. Seeds are cheap.
Comments
Post a Comment