Last week, I completed the beds and bought the seeds, but hadn't gotten a chance to plant. During the kids' naptime today, though, it was time to get dirty.
I made a quick layout plan and got to work. Here's my layout:
Here's the picture from the last post as a reference, taken from the deck:
So what is planted?
If you're able to read my handwriting, you'll see that I've noted that the house is closest to the bottom of the page... In the row closest to the house, I have two separate plants - onions and leeks. Onions are in the bed on the left, while leeks are in the bed on the right. Above that, the next two rows are broccoli in the left bed, and cauliflower on the right. Above that, I have a row of carrots on the left, and a row of beets on the right. That completes the closest two beds!
In the farther beds, I have spinach across the closest row in both beds. The next two rows in the left bed hold lettuce, while the lower row on the right holds mustard greens and the row above that has cabbage (I like lettuce a lot better than cabbage, therefore twice as much lettuce!). Finally, the top row across the two beds will hold peas. I didn't realize (a.k.a. read) that I needed to soak the peas for 12-24 hours before sowing, so they will go in tomorrow afternoon.
I don't have a whole lot of reasoning as to why things are where they are other than the lettuce and cabbage. I had heard that lettuce needs to grow in a bit more of a shaded environment, so I will be building an addition to the back two beds for the peas to grow up and provide some shade for some tasty Buttercrunch lettuce, but that will come in the next few weeks.
Being the nerd that I am, I have set up a Google Calendar for these gardens. Currently, I've got some dates in there for estimated emergence of the plants, but I'll try to keep it updated and on the sidebar!
For those of you who are more of an agricultural nerd and want to know exactly what we've got planted, here's a rundown:
- Onion - Yellow Granex (PRR) Allium cepa (hybrid) - Vidalia onion, but that term is a registered trademark.
- Leek - King Richard Allium ampeloprasum
- Broccoli - Di Cicco Brassica oleracea - Italian heirloom broccoli
- Cauliflower - Chef's choice blend Brassica oleracea (Botrytis group) - Trio of colors (white, purple, green? should be fun to see what we end up with!)
- Carrots - Cosmic Purple Daucus carota sativus
- Beets - Early wonder Beta vulgaris - these may or may not work. I didn't realize (again... a.k.a. read) until after planting them that the seeds needed to be soaked before sowing, so we'll see how they end up!
- Spinach - Bordeaux Spinacia oleracea (hybrid) - red stems and veins... I was told at our supplier (Jackson Florist) that these have been doing well this year.
- Lettuce - Butterhead/Buttercrunch/Bibb Lactuca sativa - love me some butter lettuce!
- Mustard - Spicy green Brassica juncea (hybrid) - developed to taste like wasabi. Mmmmmm...
- Cabbage - Copenhagen Market Brassica oleracea- Chosen over red cabbage as the lesser of two evils. I don't like cabbage as much as lettuce, Naomi does. Package claims it's "easy to grow." Challenge accepted!
- Peas - Sugar Snap (will be in Left Bed) Pisum sativum- Will; be building a shade trellis for these to shade the lettuce.
- Peas - Progress #9 Shelling Pisum Sativum- grows to 18", needs no staking. I'm still going to try the shade trellis idea, but it may not need it.
Happy Growing!
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