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Saturday, April 14, 2018

Plans

As I have every year since 2013, I created an online plan for the vegetable garden this year.


In light of some of my failures last year, I simplified a bit this year. First, no lettuce or cabbage because we end up not eating either of them. I'm also ignoring the garden planner's schedule for carrots. Every year I plant them as early as I can, because that's what the planner and seed packet say, and then I have carrots in summer, when I really want them in the fall. This year, I'll be planting them later, about the middle of June. We'll see how that goes.

I'm planting more broccoli in place of the cabbage because broccoli is something we can always eat. I generally freeze it and like to use it for broccoli cheese soup in the winter.

I'm trying two new things this year: Brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes. A lady I work with has grown Brussels sprouts for a couple years. She says you have to plant them later so you can harvest them after we get a frost. I'm taking her advice and will be starting them inside in June to plant out in August.

I wanted to try asparagus again this year, but can't quite bring myself to dedicate the space to it. I know it will do better in the raised beds, but it takes up a lot of space. I have recently thought of an area in the other gardens where it might survive. I need to think on that one a bit, although I know time is ticking for getting it planted.

My lack of organization last year caused me some stress and failures, so I created task lists for myself this year. This is my planting schedule:



The story this year for everyone, as far as I can tell, is that spring is LATE. Even though the dates for planting out the broccoli, onions and peas have passed, it'll still be at least a few days before I get that done. We've been in the 60's-70's for the past three days, during the workweek, but this weekend we have winter storm warnings. While the plants could probably survive the cold temperatures, I haven't had time before now to do any planting, and I'm not going out there when it's raining/sleeting/blowing.

The above schedule also shows that I have missed some seed starting dates. That has nothing to do with weather and everything to do with the fact that I took a road trip last week. I don't like making D babysit too many seedlings, so I held off planting several things. D kept the broccoli, peppers, snapdragons and St. John's wort alive while I was gone, and I have plenty of time this weekend, in light of the crappy weather, to get the other seeds started.

I also have a master task list going. It's the one I think is most important. Last year, I was so overwhelmed by the sheer number of things I want and/or need to do throughout the entire yard and garden that I hardly knew where to start. I created this task list so I could at least experience the joy of crossing things have and knowing I was making progress.


As the season progresses, more things will definitely be added, but it has already helped me get a few things done I might otherwise have forgotten. Quite a few of those tasks are weather dependent, so it could be awhile before I get to cross anything else off.

With my plans in place, I'm so ready to get outside, but I will have to satisfy myself for the time being, as so many other gardeners are, with indoor planting.

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