I planted beets, radish, and cabbage yesterday afternoon.
And then 3 hours later, I was outside, in the rain, checking to see if anything had sprouted yet.
Y'all. Not only is 3 hours not a very long time for seeds to sprout, but it was also around 45°F at the time, which is not warm enough, really, for seeds to sprout. That deserves a facepalm, yes? I just can't help myself, though. There is something magical about an entire plant being contained in a tiny little seed. And that first sign of growth? Awe inspiring.
Here's the garden plan for this year. As a reminder: I have three 4x4 raised beds, three large pots, and two window box rectangular planters. There are also other places I can plant things around the property, like in front of the chicken coop. Which might be behind the chicken coop, depending on your perspective.
In the raised bed that is farthest east, I am planning to plant sugar snap peas. That's it. Sixteen square feet of sugar snap peas. I bought a bush variety for this year, so they supposedly won't need trellising. I may do something crazy and plant another crop after the peas are done. If that happens, it'll be something like Brussels sprouts or radishes or lettuce.
There used to be strawberries in the raised bed that is in the middle, but I pulled them all out last year because I was fighting a losing battle with little white worms and we weren't ever going to get enough of a harvest from that bed to make caring for the strawberries hand picking all of those little worms worthwhile. In this bed, I'm planting flowers. I have some marigold and zinnia seeds that I saved from last year's plants, and some nasturtium and sunflower seeds. I will probably plant a cherry or grape tomato in this bed as well.
In the raised bed that is farthest west, I am going to plant Sakata's Sweet Melon and Otome Watermelon. I started the seeds indoors yesterday. No growth yet (double face palm). Y'all. We came so close to having edible watermelon last year. I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but of course I am hopeful. Gardens are all about hope. I may also plant beets and/or radishes in this bed. Both of those are small plants that don't take long to mature, so they'll probably be done before the melons start to shade them out.
Also in the garden enclosure, I may plant potatoes in a huge bucket that AKD brought home from work a couple of years ago. We'll see how I feel about that when it comes time to actually do it. And also, we'll see what kind of seed potatoes we can come up with. Lately, we've been eating the grocery store potatoes before they sprout, so that might not work for us this time.
As I mentioned, I planted cabbage, radish, and beets yesterday. The cabbage is in the three large pots--I planted it mostly because I had the seeds (they were the free seeds included with one of my Baker's Creek orders) and I wanted to see what would happen. There were no planting guidelines on the packet, so I just threw some seeds in there, and I'll probably have to do some thinning. I planted radish in one of the window boxes, and golden beets in the other. Last year was disappointing for both radish and beets--the beets never came up that I could tell, and the radishes ended up going to seed. Yes, I planted my homemade radish seeds--we'll see what happens.
I have some butterfly bombs that I think I will deploy in front of the chicken coop. Or maybe I'll try corn there again? Or sunflowers? If I do plant something there, I need to protect it from the girls, because they're currently using the area for dust bathing.
And that's all I have planned for now. I'll keep you posted. Maybe. We'll see.
