Long planting Easter weekend

Happy Easter to all who celebrate! This weekend has been VERY busy in the garden - beds were finally cleaned, leaves raked off the sides of the garden to open up tulips, hyacinth and daffodils that are just starting to wake up and peak from the ground.
Then large beds were tilled and raked, planted salads, beets, transplanted brassicas and spinach seedlings that were long overdue in planting.
Then more seeds were spread for spinach and Asian greens to keep rotation going.
In the two long beds I planted my onions - Walla-Walla, Ailsa Craig and Candy varieties.
In the far right L-shape bed I planted white potatoes that didn't want to wait much longer  and sprouted very long tentacles.
In the near L-Shape I spread many varieties of radishes - I love them for snacking and because they only need 30 days I'll have them ready before beans will be planted in that bed.
In the far left L-Shape I spread more seeds for Asian greens - mustard, bok choi and salads.
Using the space by the fencing I transplanted snow peas and planted 4 varieties of sugar snap peas and cleaned up strawberries that were planted there last year - hopefully they'll produce well this year.
Then switching to the small garden  I cleaned and planted one bed with purple and red potatoes, then in a second bed that had some of the strawberries and tulips I planted some of the fingerlings potatoes. That bed will be ripped in fall anyway.
cleaned up another bed with overwintered brassicas - red cabbage and broccoli - they're doing very well and started to grow fresh leaves. Same bed has nice overwintered parsley that is just picking up again.
Another bed that has garlic was also cleaned from covering mulch of straw that was protecting it in winter and given some compost to feed garlic.
And lastly I switched to the small bed by the shed - it was tilled and planted with leeks and red onions. Hopefully they'll do well without protection from animals.

Still a lot to do - need to finish planting more red onions and transplant more spinach from the addition. On my seedling shelves I have 60 tomatoes that woke up and started growing this week as well as 36 pepper plants. Some will be planted in the community garden but the rest in the main garden.
Today I added a flat of flowers that were seeded - they'll be outside of the garden - poppies, astras, marigolds and nasturtium. In about two weeks I'll start sunflowers.

Pictures will be posted as the garden turns more green.

Spring is almost here.

Looks like spring finally decided to arrive  here - much later than usual this  year. First of our snow-drops showed up in the small garden - I'm trying to get them to multiply but not having much of a luck.

 And our crocuses slowly waking up - these were in the bed covered with plastic for the winter so they're a bit ahead of the others - everything else is still covered with ice and snow.

 One of my small beds in the original garden was under cover for winter - it has parsley, garlic, broccoli and red cabbage that was planted last fall. By the right border are some small gentle-pink tulips. Not sure if anything will actually produce but I'll leave it as is for now.

 And from another bed still surrounded by ice is overwintered Blue Kale - just starting to grow fresh greens so I hope to have them in a pot in few weeks.

But of course Mother Nature is not giving up that easily - more snow on the way tonight and tomorrow. Let's hope it's the last of it for this winter season.

Onions arrived!

Our onions arrived for planting! I ordered Red Candy apple, Walla-Walla, Allisa Craig, White Candy and Lancelot leeks. And while it seems like a lot of onions I'm actually going to share with in-laws so it won't be too much to plant.

Too bad we also got 6" of snow at the same night. I guess Mother Nature really doesn't want us to have early spring. Given that it will be low 30/day-20s/night for at least another week I'm going to be very much behind my schedule.  But once it gets clear of snow I'm ready to dig in!

Ready to plant potatoes?



I think nature is giving me a reminder that it's time to plant potatoes - at least on the calendar schedule. It's just too bad that today was snowing again and tonight dipping to 22 degrees. And more cold on the way until next weekend. Then I'll be able to plant these beauties.

There are only few bulbs for purple variety, because we'll keep them only to eat fresh - they really don't store well at all.  My Fingerlings, Red Bliss, Yukon and Kenebeck are also waiting to be planted. One more week.

Seedlings update

It's been a slow start at my garden but then weather is really not cooperating much either - we're expecting more snow tomorrow and Thursday so slow is not such a bad thing. But never the less, seedlings were started, first batch failed but second picked up. So here are my broccoli, salads and spinach, snow peas and some onions.

 

Onions is an experiment - I ordered onion plants already, but wanted to try growing my own from seed and see how it compared at the end. Another tray of greens started today to keep rotation moving without too much overload at harvest. I really hope that this weekend I will be able to prepare some of my beds that are covered with plastic and plant some of the greens directly. There is a lot of work to be done but for past few weeks all we got was rain and snow on weekends so nothing is ready. Oh well. Just roll with it.