Front Yard Garden

I was glad to be off this past Wednesday, because I still had plants I wanted to get in the ground - and it took me longer than expected. I was expanding the vegetable garden into the beds in the front yard and had to move the plants that were there. After taking Ella to school, I went by the recycling center to get some compost, but they were out. I thought this was a little strange, but it was Earth Week and there is a sale on compost during April, according to Ken Burger's column in today's paper. It was also raining sporadically, so with two strikes against working in the yard, I took the morning off.

Once I made it outside, I started clearing the bed of plants - mostly lilies, but also a citrus that survived the winter that I had to pot up. After digging up the six or seven clumps of lilies - crinum asiaticum(I think) - I decided that, since I didn't know where they were going yet, until I do, I should pot them up for now. I was thinking about doing a mass planting somewhere, but don't know just yet. And while I'm digging, I figure I should go ahead and divide the clumps - they're quite large. I spent the rest of the morning and through lunchtime dividing and potting the lilies, ending up with 35 of them, some having multiple bulblets too small to divide.

I had an afternoon of non-gardening activities to do, so it was early evening before I got back to work. I worked some compost from a near-empty raised bed into the front garden and laid out three hills for squash, a place for watermelon to roam and room for supports for cucumbers and gourds. I planted nine Early Prolific Straightneck squash in the three hills and four watermelon vines, but I still need to get supports for the cukes and some for beans as well.

We had some much needed rain this weekend and the corn I planted a week ago is coming up, So everything is going well.

Weekend Gardening

All week I was looking forward to Sunday - I was planning to work in the yard, planting corn, pulling weeds, etc. When Sunday rolled around, I was feeling lazy. I decided that I would pull up the lettuce and spinach and prepare that bed for the corn, even though it wasn't the bed I wanted them in.

After I composted the lettuce, I put the spinach in the fridge for later. Once the bed was empty, I took a look at it and decided something need to be done. If you remember from before, this is the first bed I built and it's a little different than the other beds. I decided that I needed to fix that - it was just one concrete block longer than the others. Once I pulled the soil away from one end, I moved and leveled the blocks. The extra soil plus some compost went into my newest bed - one that was built, but not yet filled.

Since I filled the new bed, I planted corn there - where I wanted it to begin with. I planted two varieties - Early Sunglow Hybrid and Silver Queen Hybrid. I was having the gardener's version of writer's block - I couldn't decide what to plant in the other empty bed. I considered bush beans or cow peas, but ultimately I decided to transplant the three Razzelberry Hybrid tomatoes from one of the seed flats. With half a seed flat free, I put some sunflower seeds in it to germinate - I need more seed flats!

I've been dieing to get my squash, cukes and watermelon in the ground. I took another look at our front bed to see what I needed to move. I'm thinking about moving the phlox in front of the hedges and maybe do a mass planting somewhere with the asiatic lilies. I could put the Rose of Sharon somewhere else and I want to put the citrus back into a pot. It's starting to come back to life, but I don't know when.

While I was messing around the back yard, I decided to take a look at the plants we got at the plant swap. One of the things was a dried apple gourd. I thought I'd harvest the seed to grow my own - the birdhouse gourd seeds I'm trying to germinate haven't sprouted yet. While I was at it I went ahead and picked the dried fruit from the ornamental pepper, so I could get the seeds later.

All and all, it was a productive day. I got a lot done and I know what I have a plan for the near future. Hopefully, I have Wednesday off and I'll get the veggies planted in the front bed.

2010 Vegetable Garden Planning

It seems that I am doing more vegetable gardening than anything else these days. I'd like to write about a variety of topics, but this is monopolizing my gardening time lately. It's still at least three weeks before I plant potatoes and onions and maybe more lettuce and spinach, and I'm already planning the vegetables for the summer. It seemed a little early when I was looking through my Park Seed catalog Sunday night, but as I thought about it, some of the vegetables will be transplanted to the garden in late March, after having been started from seed six weeks earlier - around the second week of February. After I realized that, I felt like I was almost late. So, these are my choices from the Park Seed catalog - most of these varieties are recommended for our area by the Clemson Extension and can be found in my vegetable garden chart.

Pole Beans - Kentucky Wonder, Blue Lake, Kentucky Blue
Kentucky Blue looks likes the best, but I've grown the other two, so I might get all three. I'll be able to compare the three and see which ones I want to grow in the future.

Sweet Corn - Early Sunglow, Silver Queen
These are regular sweet varieties, rather than a super sweet or sugar-enhanced hybrid. The Early Sunglow can be planted earlier than normal, so we'll get corn through the whole growing season.

Cucumber - Sweet Slice, Diva, Sweet Success(seedless), Salad Bush
I know we won't eat all these cucumbers, but I thought I might grow one. The Salad Bush variety looks like the one for us. The catalog calls it "a space-saving slicing cuke".

Watermelon - Sweet Beauty Hybrid
I know we might only eat a slice or two of watermelon, It's always good to have one to eat in the summer, and if I have more, I'll give them to neighbors or take one to a fourth of July party.

Peanuts - Gregory
I've never grown peanuts before, but I thought I would give them a try. I have to figure out how many plants I need to get about two pounds of peanuts. I boiled some peanuts a couple of summers ago in the crock pot and they turned out pretty well.

Pumpkin - Autumn Gold, Howden, Big Moon
I don't know if I'll grow all of these varieties. They are very different, so I thought I might try them all. Autumn Gold pumpkins are 7-10 pounds. Howdens will be 20-30 pounds. According to the catalog, Big Moon may produce 150 pound fruit. I think my brother-in-law grew some of these huge pumpkins a couple of years ago and I'm just a little curious.

Squash - Early Summer Crookneck, Enterprise (straightneck)
To the best of my knowledge these are bush type squash and I'd really like a vining type. Squash take up a lot of space and I'd like to grow these on a trellis of some sort if I can. Several years ago, I bought a squash plant from Lowes and it was a vining type. Ever since, I've ended up with bush type, and I'd rather not have that. If I can't find what I'm looking for, I think one of my neighbors grows it and probably has some seeds I can have.

Tomatoes
I'm still looking at tomatoes - I haven't decided which variety to grow yet. Everything I read about them, talks about how many diseases they can have, so I don't think I'm planting them in the garden ever again. I'm planning to use five-gallon buckets to grow them in from now on. I can put them anywhere and it'll leave room in the garden for other veggies.

Peppers
Same goes for the peppers. There's even more variety of peppers than tomatoes, or it seems like. I'm planning to get a few varieties of bell and sweet peppers for Robin.

Sunflowers
I'll probably get a mix of sunflowers and stagger plantings through the year, so we'll have them for a long time.

Coneflowers
I'm planning to get the four different varieties that Park Seed has.

Strawberries
I've got to learn a little more about strawberries before I buy any. They're sold as plants, so I have some time before I need to order them.

Seed Starting

I thought I would get a head start this year if I grew my own vegetables and flowers from seed. Boy, was I wrong! I don't think I anticipated how early I should have been starting various seeds. I started seeds in January and February for cool season crops like lettuce, broccoli, spinach, cauliflower and onions. They took their time germinating - some didn't at all. (I know that some of them were last year's seeds, but still.)

I thought I was making progress, but I didn't have anything to compare it to...until I went to Lowes. Nothing will make you less inclined to grow from seed than visiting Lowes in mid February. I am exaggerating...a little. I did buy a few things there, but I was determined to see this growing from seed thing through. I bought onion sets - it seems the seeds I started were the wrong kind for my area. (More on onions another time) I bought heading lettuce - it was so much larger than what I had grown up to that point. I also bought broccoli - my seeds hadn't germinated. I will be buying tomatoes as well - you get the picture.

My successes? I consider the sweet corn I transplanted to the garden Wednesday a success. Ditto on the sunflower seedlings I put in the front yard at the same time. Also I have a fair amount of Black Eyed Susans and Purple Coneflowers and a few Hibiscuses that I will be transplanting soon.

On a related note, last year my mother-in-law gave me a grow-your-own-kitchen-herbs kit that she bought at Goodwill. I had no expectations of getting any plants out of it, not knowing how old it was. So I wasn't surprised when nothing happened. She gave me another one this year, maybe for Xmas, and I waited until a week or two ago to start the seeds. To my surprise, most of the seeds germinated - Basil, Parsley and Corriander, but not the Thyme. I'll keep you posted on those.