Early May is less than 3 weeks away, and a lot of planting is going to happen! I’ve got my community garden plot and my own backyard container garden for vegetables for the family.
I started planning back in January. I set up that my goal would be to grow mostly vegetables that are storable – either by canning or just putting into the basement like a quick and dirty root cellar setup. That allowed me to figure out what to plant, based on the community garden plot and in containers.
I also went through a process of seeing if my seeds from 2024 were still viable. I took six seeds from several packs and wrapped them in damp paper towels. After ten days, I looked to see the germination rates. My spaghetti squash and pumpkin seeds both germinated at 75% rate, so I kept them. After that, I made my big order to Johnny Seeds. I also ordered from Victory Seeds for the first time, as they had black beans suitable for drying, unlike Johnny.
After that, I worked out a seeding/planting schedule. Last year, I didn’t do so well on this end, so this year, I wanted to have it all planned out so I’d know how soon to get the beds ready. Then… the long wait! I wouldn’t start my indoor seedlings till end of March, so I had two months of sitting on my hands.
Finally, I reached March 30th and it was time to seed the marigolds and tomatoes. I’m doing a lot of Roma tomatoes for canning and sauces, a few larger “Wisconsin 55” tomatoes and a few cherry tomatoes. The marigolds are to help keep the critters away by interspersing flowers in/around the vegetables. Next week was Bell Peppers, alyssums and two impulse Walmart-Burpee purchases of perennial herbs – thyme and lavender. Finally, this past weekend, I seeded nasturtiums.
The seedlings are doing great! I have an indoor greenhouse setup, some grow lights and the trays.
I’ve already learned some valuable lessons, such as rotating the trays to make sure all seedlings get a good amount of light. Each shelf has only 1 light and it doesn’t go all the way across, so the edge seedlings are a bit stunted and/or leaning! I just put this together today, so I’m trying to rotate the trays. I’m also going to buy more lights for next year, so I have the entire row covered.
I just started a weak (secret formula) fertilization of the plants that have 2 to 3 sets of “true” leaves, and with the tomatoes, I’m going to be moving them over to their larger pots soon, depending on growth. (First rule of secret formula, we don’t talk about what goes into the formula…)
On the community garden plot side, I started work last week, as I had to sow my spinach. After the fall cover crop experiment last year, I was curious what condition the soil would be in this spring. I was not disappointed! The ground was extremely easy to work with. All I needed was to use my broadfork to get down deep and open up the soil, and then a garden fork to hand till the upper 6 inches or so. I used a bow rake to do the final ground prep, and a hand garden fork to work in some COF (Steve Solomon acronym for organic fertilizer).
The greens row has been fully prepped, as is the potato row, and the rest of the plot is flagged and marked for other rows and walkways.
Today, I’ll sow the potatoes and lettuce. So we’re off!
Next up is constructing a bucket container stand for the container garden. That will have more romas, some cherry tomatoes and Wisconsin 55 tomatoes. The thyme and lavender will go into an area of the garden that gets good light.
So much is happening! It’s that time of year!