Finally planting time!

This was the first weekend when we went above 60 degrees, and yesterday even reached 67. So I checked my soil and it was finally warm enough to start planting some of my cold-seasoned veggies: Peas, chards, beets, onions, potatoes, spinach, arugula, lettuce and asian greens like mustards, chinese kale and bok choy.  Potatoes were LONG overdue to be planted and the ones I put in a tray to "chit" early were overgrown and started to dry out a bit.  That was a mix of white and fingerlings, so while I did plant them, I won't mind if some didn't come up.

 Thankfully the second batch was more stable and included purple and red potatoes that I wanted to plant for my hubby to eat in salads. I don't care much for red variety but he loves it. As you can see, not much was planted for each type.

Also planted but forgot to take picture was my Yukon Golds - only a handful went into a bed in large garden so we can eat early in summer, but the main planting will go to the farm area.
For the peas, I planted these varieties:
Peas - Blauschokker Shelling
Peas - Burpena Early
Peas - Garden Pea Laxton's Progress #9
Peas - Garden Sweet
Peas - Green Arrow Shelling
Peas - Snowbird
Peas - Sugar Ann Snap
Peas - Super Snappy
Peas - Super Sugar Snap Pea
Again, not too many for each, just enough to eat fresh and see which will perform better. The snow peas are for the stir-fry that my hubby loves. Now I just hope they'll make it without groundhog eating them down like last year. I'll do another post on beets and other greens later in a week.

On the seedling front at home, my tomatoes doing great and growing like weeds!  Another few days and I'll be transferring them all to much larger pots and getting them ready for hardening off.

There is also a tray for the community garden - specific choices that my fellow gardeners asked me to plant for them.These were planted about 2 weeks after my first batch so they are smaller, but they're doing really well.

Peppers on the other hand are struggling and only few have woken up and started to grow. I still hope the rest will wake up soon, but I have a back up plan - gave bunch of seeds to have started at the greenhouse in much warmer conditions, so hopefully it will get me enough seedlings for both farm and home. Primary focus will be on sweet peppers for home eating and only few special ones from hot varieties for cooking.

 I had to pluck my lonely lemon out of the lemon plant and put the plant outside as it decided to drop all leaves and has been very sick, so I hope some fresh air and sunshine will jump-start the growing process again. For now I'll be enjoying my tea with lemon :)  And my sweet potato starting to root so hopefully soon will have slips growing.

So, how does everyone else get their garden planted?

Slow Awakening

We finally got few days above freezing and yesterday was even close to 60! So opened all windows to get fresh air and went to look in my garden to see what's happening and if anything survived over winter. It was really nice to spot some pretties waking up - a full month behind their normal schedule, but better late than never. First crocuses started to open up, and daffodils peaked through the ground.

22 foot bed of garlic is patchy but still enough to keep for this year and plenty to store for winter. I might give some of it away. In "bald" places where garlic didn't make it I will plant some broccoli or greens.  And first snow drop opened up which made me very happy.

I did notice that most of the bulbs i planted outside the garden in a new bed that was not protected have vanished, so deer and squirrels had a nice lunch.  Oh well, at least my other bed of flowers inside main garden is starting to wake up and once it goes into bloom I'll take a picture. I'll wait 3 more days and will plant peas and potatoes and some spinach over the weekend.

Spring is missing in action

Well Mother Nature is sure not in a hurry with spring this year around. It was 17 degrees Saturday night, and on Tuesday afternoon we got another snowstorm.

But at home we have plants waking and ready to get some sunshine. My fig plant that was overwintering has started growing and has baby figs starting to form. The overwintered pepper and rosemary also starting to add new growth.

 

And my seedlings are awake and started to stretch toward the lights.

Now if only weather would cooperate..