With this insanely cold winter we’re having, I’ve been even more excited than usual to get back to gardening. Gardening around here (zone 6) usually starts with my birthday. My birthday is St. Patrick’s Day, so March 17th is when I always try to get my cold weather seeds planted. It’s colder than normal this year, but we’re still going to go for it.
Before we plant our seeds, we add some rabbit manure and mix it in.
There’s no right way to garden, but this is how I do it. On the first nice day close to St. Patrick’s Day, I plant my cold weather seeds – peas, kale, lettuce, radish, arugula, and swiss chard. I used to plant spinach, but I have trouble keeping it from bolting, so I don’t bother anymore and stick with kale and chard instead. If I want spinach instead of kale, I can pick up organic spinach pretty easily from any grocery store.
I got my seeds from another family business – Seeds for Generations. As you know, I love supporting family businesses and this is a family that homeschools and involves their children in the details of the business. They have all sorts of heirloom seeds available, so take a look!
We’ve planted turnips seeds around this time in the past, but my family just doesn’t love them, so they usually get fed to the rabbits. We’ve decided to skip them this year. I used to plant broccoli and cabbage directly from seed, but now I just purchase pre-started plants because it’s easier. I’ll do that in about two weeks!
Do you have a garden? When do you start?
We don’t have a great spot for a garden as such – suburban house. We do have a back yard, but the maple in the middle of it shades most of it, and with two boys under 6 who both love running around, it’s important to me to keep the grass as grass.
There is one bed on the north side where I could rip out the ornamental stuff that came with the house and plant for food, and another on the south for anything that could stand near-full shade.
What we do have, though, is a fairly big concrete patio (also came with the house, sadly) that we use mostly to cross to the grass, or to sit on one bench and some chairs. So we arrange those in the shadier parts (where you want them anyway during the summer!) and grow vegetables and fruits in containers on the patio.
We just moved some of our seedlings out, in fact (they were growing in little starter pots in front of an upstairs window, where their less-hardy friends still are). The boys each got a row of 6 starter pots, and what they started was so classically *them* that I about fell down laughing. Ian picked from my seeds and started two types of brandywine tomatoes, strawberries, carrots, sweet red peppers, and lemon cucumbers. Drew started one of strawberries and then begged and pleaded for watermelon and started five (!!) of those. Guess which one I can more easily get to eat a variety of veggies and fruits? Yep.
Drew is enthusiastic about the planting process, however – he was thrilled to help me break apart clumps in the soil, and every other part I would let him help with. That I let him use the hose didn’t hurt matters at all. So hopefully helping to raise the veggies in my beds as well will make him a bit more enthusiastic! (Ian’s list is pretty representative. I also have a bunch of herbs, and I *had* some lettuce that didn’t survive the attempt at germination inside. I’ll make another attempt at that. I’m debating some peas, but I already have ridiculous support issues with the tomatoes, so maybe not.
Good for you for making do with what you have and teaching your children! I LOVE it!! Peas are easier to grow on trellises, but you can let them fall over without any support and still get peas. Plus they are super light compared to tomatoes. 🙂
PJ
Out here in Reno, we too have had some up & down weather. So, this year, we decided to start our seeds indoors & wait until the Lord decides what He is going to do with the Good weather that we need to plant….LOL. This is something new to us. We usually just plant seeds outside & wait and see…;) But we keep getting into the 20’s at night – we are having to wait…..:)
Our peas have FINALLY sprouted, as have some of the lettuce and kale. Going to be interesting to see if the peas do anything before it gets too hot.
PJ