What's Up in the Garden?

LOTS!! We've learned a lot these past couple weeks. I killed my first 15 broccoli plants putting them out too early, so I've started more. I also killed almost all my lettuce and spinach that I had started early inside by putting it out too early. A cold spell did them both in.

Even though I failed with these two plantings other's have started beautifully! We have a full bed each of turnips, rutabegas, and beets, 2 beds of shelling peas, 1 ½ of snow peas, ½ a bed of garlic, and ½ a bed of lettuce, spinach, and green onion mix that have sprouted!! Each bed is approximately 20' X 3'All these beginning crops look promising! It is so cool seeing neat little rows of plants springing up through the earth! The strawberry plants are also doing GREAT!! We were given another 120 plants that I transplanted, a five hour job, a couple weeks ago. Our strawberry patch is 80' X 5'.We already need to spend some time weeding out the crack grass in the snow pea and strawberry beds.

Our big pressure project right now is getting the potato beds ready. We will be planting blue potatoes, red through potatoes, red skinned potatoes, and storage potatoes. The potatoes are supposed to go in the back garden which has only about 1/8 ready for planting. I've been told they can go in the ground the 1st of May.

I need to get raspberry plants in some of the area that is ready and must get an 80' X 20' ish area ready to get the potatoes in the ground. Hopefully we'll be able to finish up that much by Saturday so we can plant early next week. The rest of the 84 X 84 plot will be finished over the next couple weeks Lord willing. It looks as if a section that is about 20 X 20 might not be usable due to some very LARGE boulders. This will cause some major planting modification in the back plot. I don't think it will effect too much though since I have decided not to do cherry bushes, huckle berries, and choke cherries.

The other crop I'd like to get in very soon is carrots. I'd like to do 2 beds early next week. I also need to harden up the rest of my storage onions and leeks so I can add them to the beds we've already started for them.

Hopefully by the end of next week I will also have the cabbage, cauliflower, and celery in their beds. It will depend on the weather. I will probably have to protect these if I get them out next week because I'm sure we'll still have some cold nights that they won't be able to handle. I have 100's of canning jars that will do the job nicely, so we'll be fine if we need to protect them.

About half of the tomatoes that I started back in March are already over a foot tall. The other half that were started in the soil packed inside toilet paper rolls are only about 4 inches tall. HUGE difference between dirt and the peat pellets!!! The pepper plants are all a few inches tall and are establishing some nice leaves. Last year I noticed that my pepper plants grew much slower than the tomatoes, I'm not sure why, but it must be normal because this year the same thing is happening. The tomato plants smell WONDERFUL!! I can imagine how yummy the tomatoes will taste by just smelling the plants.

For those that are wondering we did manage to make just over 6 gallons of Syrup in March and early April. It was a great syrup harvest for our first year!

Starting More Plants

Since the only thing in the garden is mud right now I decided to start more plants inside today. The tomatoes, peppers, onions, leeks and celery that I started on the 9th are all doing very well. Many of the tomatoes are getting their second set or what some call their first real set of leaves.

Today I used up the rest of my peat pellets. The toilet paper rolls are ok but seem to have a bit of white mold on them. I'm not sure how the mold will effect the plants so I'm not going to start any more in tp tubes this year to make sure the plants started in them do well until transplanting into the garden.

The plants started today were broccoli, cauliflower, red cabbage, green cabbage, kale, swiss chard, spinach, 6 different types of lettuce, more copra onions and red onions. I need to buy more starter trays before I can do my herbs. They really don't need to be started until the beginning of April anyway. I also need to start another tray or 2 each of copra onions, red onions, and leeks so each of the beds for these onions will be full.

I tried tilling the garden last week just enough to get in the garlic and maybe some peas... but a belt broke. I'm not sure if it was because the soil was still too wet or if a little mouse decided to chew on the belt this winter while the tiller was being stored in the garage. Phil will be looking at it and getting it fixed ASAP. There are many things I'd like to get started in the garden the first week of April.

Sprouting and Syruping

I was excited to discover that many of the leeks have started to sprout, even the ones planted in the toilet paper tubes! Many of the tomatoes are poking through the dirt and hopefully sometime over the next few days we'll see the pepper plants starting. I will need to start more onions, tomatoes, and peppers on Monday. I also need to start the broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage. If I have enough peat pellets left I will probably start some lettuce & spinach too.

We tapped 16 Maple trees yesterday and today. So far we have only gathered about 10 gallons of sap which will yield around a quart of syrup. We will gather tomorrow twice then start cooking it down on Monday.

If want to read a funny story about two of our children who were trapped in the garden today stop by our family blog: The Adventures of the Reese's Pieces Gang

How much should I plant?

I've been in a real cooking rut lately. When this happens I find the easiest way to get inspired is to do inventory of my freezer and pantry. Today I went through all my freezers to find out just what I have on hand. A couple days ago I organized my root cellar/pantry. You may be asking what in the world does going through the freezer and root cellar have to do with gardening? Well, for me it gave me a great picture of how many veggies I need to plant. We have been out of beans, corn and broccoli since the end of January. I have a 4 - 2 cup baggies of diced celery left, some whole tomatoes, strawberries, shredded zucchini, cole slaw, pumpkin, a few 2 cup baggies of wax beans (not our favorite to eat alone) and 3 – quart baggies of sweet potatoes. I also found buried in the depths of the freezer one more quart each of beans and corn. When I checked my butternut squash I found that we still have 4 that are usable and 4 that are starting to get wrinkly and spoiled. Spoiled veggies don't disappoint me since I know they can feed the pig.

In my root cellar I am down to 6 quarts of Tomato Sauce, 3 Quarts of Tomato Soup, 1 Quart of Speg Sauce, 8 quarts of diced tomatoes, 6 pints of BBQ sauce, and about 10 pints of Salsa. We still have a lot of pickles and relishes.

A couple days ago I thawed one of my zucchini crisp baggies and cooked it up. It smelled WONDERFUL cooking however, the texture was not very nice. Now I know that freezing zucchini for winter crisps isn't worth it!! So, Pinky (our sow) will be enjoying some zucchini over the next week. I only have 3 other gallon baggies full of it because I didn't want to do a lot just in case it was gross... which it was!!

As a result of my freezer diving I know that I need to plant a lot more beans, peas, corn, and broccoli to freeze for winter use. I also want to freeze more spinach. We like spinach in our baked egg dishes. I'm planning on enough space for over 500 onions (I use 1-2 onions a day) along with a full bed 20 X 3 of leeks. I'll be planting some green onions in the lettuce and spinach beds to be used with our salads.
Phil is going to explain how we do our garden layout using excel, hopefully he'll be able to post our garden layout too.

Starting Plants

I started some of my plants on March 9th. This year I'm using peat pellets, toilet paper rolls cut in thirds and filled with soil, and reusable plastic planters.

On March 9th I started Cosmonaut Volkov Tomates, Gardener's Delight Cherry Tomatoes, Amish Paste Tomatoes, New Ace Peppers, Early Jalapeno Hot Peppers, Copra Onion, and Golden Self-Blanching Celery in Peat pellets. I also started 55 leeks, and more of the Cosmonaut & Cherry Tomatoes in toilet paper rolls filled with store bought potting soil.

I am using the book The Midwest Fruit and Vegetable Book, Wisconsin Edition as a guide to help me figure out when to start my plants indoor. I do not have a green house so Phil and I have come up with a way to put a temporary one in the garden with very little expense. I will be using my tomato trellis's by putting two tomato beds together. Each bed is 3' X 18' with a foot between. We will stretch the plastic over the trellises and secure it to the ground with wood or rocks. The sides will be closed using clothes pins. On cooler nights we will put a space heater under the plastic so the little plants will stay warm enough. Once we get it up I will take a picture and post it. I hope that by putting my plants in the “greenhouse” by the beginning of April that they will not be as spindly as they were last year when I grew them in front of a window until it was time to harden them up for transplanting.

Ordering Seeds

I ordered seeds from two companies. Fedco Seeds www.fedcoseeds.com and Jordan Seeds www.jordanseeds.com. I was able to order with a friend who runs a local CSA, which allowed me to receive a discount on both orders. My total expense so far for seeds has been $85. I still have to order potatoes at the end of this month.

Here is a list of seeds I got from each company:
Jordan: Early Jersey Wakefield Cabbage, Black Beauty Eggplant, Green Sprouting Calabrese Broccoli, , Dwarf Blue Curled Kale, Asparagus (yes I'm planting from seed, we'll see how it goes), Northern Lights Swiss Chard, Tall Utah Celery, Red Acre Cabbage, Improved Hollow Crown Parsnip, American Flag Leek, American Purple Top Rutabaga, Detroit Dark Red Beets, Snowball Self Blanch Cauliflower, Contender Bush Green Beans, Royalty Purple Bush Bean, Purple Top White Globe Turnip, Early Frost Pea, Oregon Sugar Pod Snow peas, Cherokee Wax Beans, Little Finger Carrots, and Nantes Scarlet Carrots.

Fedco: Cosmonaut Volkov Tomatoes, Gardener's Delight Cherry Tomato, Amish Paste Tomato, New Ace Pepper, Early Jalapeno Hot Pepper, Copra Onion, Golden Self-Blanching OP Celery, Cream of Saskatchewan Watermelon, Sugar Baby Watermelon, Delicious 51 Muskmelon, Oka Muskmelon, Crystal White Wax Mini Onion, Everygreen Hardy White Scallion, Winter Lettuce Mix, Summer Lettuce Mix, Tom Thump Baby Bib Lettuce, Red Salad Bowl Lettuce, Black Seeded Simplson Lettuce, Bordeaux Spinach, New England Pie Pumpkin, Connecticut Field Pumpkin, Spaghetti Squash, Blue Hubbard Squash, Zeppelin Delicata Squash, Waltham Butternut Squash, Burgess Buttercup Squash, Golden Zucchini, de Bourbonne Cornichon Pickling Cuke, and a gree zucchini that is on back order.

I know.... this is a LOT of seed. I am determined this year to have every bed filled with food so that I can mulch heavily when the plants are up to help manage weeds. Last year I underestimated the number of plants per 3' X 20' “row” and we ended up with empty areas where the weeds thrived. YUCK!

Gardening Blog Introduction

Allow me to introduce myself. I am a busy mom of 6 children between the ages of 4 & 12. I am married to my best friend who will be a contributor to this blog, and we live in South Central Wisconsin in Zone 5. I am fairly new to gardening. When some of our children were younger Phil and I tried a couple vegetable gardens which didn't yield much due to our lack of attention and knowledge about gardening. Last summer, 2008, we decided it was time to get serious about growing organic food for our family. Phil started our 80 X 50 garden in the evenings because it was located at our new home close to where he was boarding during the week. We moved to where our garden was started the middle of June. Because of the move and a illness that hit me in August, we battled the weeds furiously and enjoyed a nice harvest preserving over 88 gallons of food not counting our root and squash vegetables. We were very pleased with our first garden even though there were many lessons along the way.

I've spent the last couple months reading about gardening in Wisconsin, ordering seeds, and developing a plan for our garden layouts. This summer we will have the West Garden and the South Garden. Our South Garden is 80' X 50' and is the one we used last summer. The West Garden is where our pigs lived last summer. We allowed Pinky & Stinky to prepare this new 84' X 84' plot. We still have to remove rocks and some weeds from this plot before it will be ready to be planted, so it will be used for the crops that cannot go into the ground until late May & early June. I use a square foot garden method rather than a row method of planting. You may be wondering why a family of 8 needs two LARGE gardens. We are hoping to grow a lot of food that can be used for our pigs, chickens, goats, and other animals.

This blog will be our vegetable and herb garden journal. I hope you will enjoy growing and learning along with us this summer.