Planting Time

I just took a couple of days to organize my vegetable seeds/plants and to decide what I'm planting and where. I've narrowed my first planting down to white and yellow onion sets, broccoli plants and carrots, lettuce and spinach seeds.

Also I have three kinds of onion seeds, more lettuce and spinach seeds and broccoli seeds. I plan to use the lettuce and spinach in a succession planting. I'll probably start the broccoli in seed flats and move them to the garden when I have room. I've been wanting to try to grow onions from seed - fall is the best time to do that, but I don't have a lot more room. I'll try to squeeze them in with the carrots if I don't have too many.

If nothing interferes with my plans, I should be planting everything this weekend.

Fall Gardening

Fall sneaked up on me this year. Back in August the newspaper ran an article about it that made me feel like I was behind in my planting. I could have planted some things, but it seemed really too hot for lettuce, spinach, etc. Onions wouldn't be planted until October, so I really had time to wait and see what the weather did. Strangely fall happened almost at the same time as October - which means I need to get planting.

I called a few feed stores last week, looking for onion sets and I found them. I only know of around five, but after a couple of years of buying potatoes and onions, there seem to be only two reliable ones: Dorchester Feed and Supply and Red Top Feed and Tackle Shop. There is more info on these stores here.

I had today off and planned to go to one of them to get onions and whatever else they might have. I thought I would check with my neighbor, Mr. Hiers - he was looking for collard greens and last year I gave him onion sets, because he couldn't find any. I told him I where I was going and volunteered to buy him what he needed.

I ended up buying Mr. Hiers two pounds of yellow onion sets and five 9-packs of collars greens. I bought a 9-pack of broccoli and a pound each of yellow and white onion sets for myself. I don't think I'll plant all of the onions, so I've offered some to a couple of friends who are getting serious into gardening. I've had mixed results with onions, so let's hope I fair better this year.

After I took Mr. Hiers what I bought him, I began preparing my garden. I pulled weeds and worked some compost into the beds and I sat down and started planning what and where to plant. I've got onion sets and onion seeds, broccoli plants and broccoli seeds and lettuce, spinach and carrot seeds. The broccoli plants and onion sets I have to plant this fall. If I plant the onion, carrot and broccoli seeds I should plant them this fall. I have two packs each of lettuce and spinach seeds, so I will plant one now and one later, so I will have salads all winter and spring.

I think I have room for most of this - I do have two many onion seeds, though - three different varieties. I'll at least try growing one kind just to get some experience at this. I'll let you know soon what I end up planting.

Pond Redo

It looks like I may redesign the pond this winter. I've been meaning to completely finish it - decide on a permanent design and lay the flagstone with mortar - but I've had things happen. There was a leak in the bog that was a major fix - now there is another leak, so I've quit circulating the pond through the bog. It's slowly drying out - I've watered a few of the plants - but I have to find a new home for most of them in the near future.

One of the reasons I've had problems with the bog is I didn't invest the money in this project that I should have. In hind sight, I wouldn't have spent the extra money to do it right. We didn't have the money to do it that way - we were relying on mostly donated materials and my own sweat equity. I probably bit off a little more than I could chew, and did what I could with what I had. The way I should have done it was to make the bog and the pond out of a single piece of pond liner, rather than the two that I used. I also used about the cheapest liner I could find for the bog - twice!

I'm redesigning the pond/bog to use the current pond liner for both the pond and bog. obviously the pond will be smaller with a very small area used for a bog. I will probably plant some of the other bog plants in the ground around the pond - I just have to make sure they get the extra moisture they need to thrive. Maybe I'll make a bog in the ground like I've seen lots of places around the internet. I'll put most of the carnivorous plants in that area or in pots - the one that's in a pot seems to be doing fine. I have a design in mind for all of this , but I won't know exactly what it will look like until I get in there and get digging.