Not that we’re planning to grown any oak trees…yet I digress from my opening sentence.
Apparently I’ve been remiss in my blogging duties and my enthralled public is clamoring for more. I hope this entry will tide some of you over for a couple of days. When baby doesn’t nap, Mama doesn’t blog.
So sometime back in early February (I think it was) we were visiting with our lovely and knowledgeable friend Edna. She showed Mike her collection of “salsa garden” seedlings. Mike nodded and smiled and arrived home champing at the bit to get started on his own array of baby plantlings.
Never one to let the competition get ahead of him, Mike went hog wild, planting beans, tomatoes, peppers, squash, and basil.
Mike has asked me to clarify the previous sentence: it was not in the spirit of competition, he would like you to know, but because Edna KNOWS (this was stressed rather dramatically) what she’s doing when it comes to farming and/or gardening.
A few weeks later, Mike decided to research when, exactly, one should begin planting for the purpose of transplanting.
We’re not altogether sure what we’ll do with the monster bean plants (anyone know a Jack in need of some climbing?) but we’ll manage, I’m sure. Some of the aforementioned seedlings will be fine. Some will have selflessly devoted themselves to the cause of greater gardening. For this, we thank them.
Let us out! Let us out!
Following this episode, Mike has decided to plant carefully (studiously, even), with an eye to “continuous harvest.”
What is continuous harvest, you might be asking? Particularly in a climate not given to a large percentage of frost-free days? Well, in this case, continuous harvest really could be defined as planting on a schedule so that produce is able to be harvested on an on-going basis throughout the growing season. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, for instance, to plant great heaps of spinach because who other than me (or my sister Joan) could eat pound upon pound of fresh spinach in a couple of weeks? Continuous harvest allows you to keep yourself in spinach (or whatever you love) for as many weeks as your growing season will allow. Mike has worked out a weekly schedule detailing when to plant seedlings (so, to use my spinach example: he is planting spinach April 11th, April 25th, May 8th, May 23rd, and June 6th - if I’ve read his chart correctly).
Seeds foreground, Seedlings background.
I have been asked what we’re planting this year. Since we’ve joined one (and soon, another) CSA this year (more on that later…) we’ve decided to leave the exotics to other people, and focus, instead on the “staples.” I don’t know about you, but in this house fresh basil is, decidedly, a staple. We’re also growing: parsley, chives, oregano, dill, marigolds, lettuce, spinach, bell peppers, cucumber, carrots, zucchini (which we plan to harvest long before the baseball bat stage, thanks Mom), peas, beans, and squash. I think that is everything.
Also of interest (in my most humble opinion) is the fancy pots Mike is using. He procured a pot maker from Lee Valley which allows him to form pots out of newspaper. He can write right on the pot, and then compost it once the seedling has vacated it. Too, too cool. So cool, I’m including two photos:
Newspaper Pot
This is basil
And now we eagerly await May 16th: our nephew’s 7th birthday, the anniversary of the last day of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, AND the projected first frost free day in Nova Scotia…and the day in which our seedlings will face the real world.
