Sound Food RSS
| Sound Food's weekly gardening tips |
| Written by Marilyn Ostergren |
| Monday, 06 April 2009 22:07 |
|
Kathy: Weeding Since it is still pretty cold, although the soil temp on the peas is now up closer to 50 (under the remay). It is a good time to weed, and it is pretty easy now to pull those suckers out before they go to seed. Parsley I have planted some parsley. Parsley takes up to three weeks to germinate and it is perfect weather right now for it. The Italian flat leafed variety is the better tasting for cooking, the curley mostly for decoration. Garlic If you have garlic in you should be fertilizing it every other week with fish fertilizer which will make give it the nitrogen for nice big heads. Compost: I am spreading compost on the beds this week and removing some of the winter mulch from beds that I am not going to use it on so the soil can warm up. Greens Start small amounts of greens every couple weeks this month ( spinach, lettuce, arugula, mizuna, broccoli raab, bok choy, cilantro) so that you space them out for a longer season instead of a glut!. Collards & Kale? My collards and kale are both up in the greenhouse and I will grow them up there and plant out when they get big enough and plant some more directly in the garden for a longer season. Clean pots: It is also a good time to clean up your pots for either flowers or veggies, there is a good book on CONTAINER vegetable growing called Bountiful Containers by Rose Marie Nichols McGee for some suggestions on how to do this. That's about it for this week. Darren: Grafting Over the last month, I have been busy on a number of fronts. I recently completing grafting about 40 new varieties of fruit (apples, pears, and plums) onto my existing fruit trees (some of which now have 25 varieties on one trunk). Over the next few months, I will be monitoring them to see which will take. Seedlings: A month ago I started my snap peas, cabbage, broccoli, brussel sprouts, swiss chard, lettuce, celery, and beet seedlings inside. With all the cold, wet weather…I have found starting the seeds indoors gives me a better chance at germination than sowing directly outside (at least until the weather improves). I have also found that some vegetables…such as lettuce, spinach, and maybe celery (still trying to figure out how best to start the latter) do better without a heat pad (preferring an unheated window ledge or outdoors greenhouse). Transplanting seedlings After about two weeks, the seedlings were transferred to my greenhouse (which I am leaving unheated for now). I transplanted the snap peas directly into the garden and have adjusted well. As of yesterday, the cabbage/broccoli/brussel sprouts plants are nearly ½ inches high and starting to get their second leaves. I plan on transplanting them to larger containers over the next few days. The beets will be transplanted into the garden in several more weeks. Onion starts/garlic/potatoes I also received my Stockton Red onion starts and planted them about 2 weeks ago (nearly 200 plants). I plan on planting my potatoes and some remaining elephant garlic over the next few days. The garlic should have been planted last fall…but I have found the elephant garlic still does well planted in March or early April. Tomato/basil seedlings Last Friday, I started by tomato and basil seedlings (which are starting to come up). I know friends who have already started their tomato seeds…but again with the weather being so cold, my timing is probably pretty good. In about 2 weeks, I will move the new starts to the greenhouse. At that point, I do intend to heat the greenhouse at night…as these plants do not do well in cold conditions. Strawberries & raspberries Cleaned out my strawberry beds, replacing older plants with new starts. Will be putting compost (chicken manure and straw) around the plants today. Also dug up and transplanted some raspberry plants. Now is the time to transplant berry plants…although the sooner the better as most are starting to leaf out. Spinach/lettuce My fall spinach and lettuce is doing great…and have begun to harvest. I have found spinach to be a great crop (as well as cilantro) to winter over. I am also getting some purple cabbage, brussel sprouts, and winter/purple broccoli…both of which also made it thru the winter quite well. |
