Early Spring Planting

Spring planting is an actual thing where I live. It feels cruel given the arctic chill blanketing most of the rest of the country, but all I can say is, you get summer. We don't.

Getting money's worth out of new spring hat and knee socks from Target

Here during one of a recent string of 70-ish degree days, we planted radishes, lettuce, basil, cilantro, sugar snap peas and broccoli rabe. The kids put in carrots and flowers (ugh). This was all thanks to my husband, who spent a good chunk of time last weekend dealing with the weeds that had crept, then galloped, into the vegetable patch.

Over the winter, about every two weeks I planted lettuce, b. rabe, and a few other things that are supposed to be fine in cool weather. The rabe mysteriously sprouted very tall flowers before eking out a few heads (not edible). I have a few lettuce heads doing fine. That's about it - it has not been a four-season garden this year. In addition to gardener laziness, we did have a crazy rainy December, which definitely washed away a few sowings, and then basically dry for January and February.

"Hmm... where can I randomly scatter more seeds?"

The kids were pleased to get out there today and seemed to forget the squabbling that has dominated this weeklong school break. They even shared seeds. My son had a baggie of harvested zinnia seeds from his Zinnia on Steroids that was the shining star of his garden last year. I think between the two kids, they sprinkled them all on a one-foot square area. Should be showy in a couple months!

Fall Planting

"Can I do the carrots, Mommy?"

Today is the first sunny day this week - and ironically enough, it's time for fall planting. "Assisted" by my three year old, I cleared a spot that hasn't been planted in a couple seasons (due to the previous bamboo problems). I dug in some new soil additives. My kid enjoyed mixing the two kinds of dirt together. Then we sowed beet, carrot, lettuce, and cilantro seeds. I'd like to do favas, but I don't have the space right now.

I haven't found a good plant marker I like. Or should I say, one I can put in the ground that my kids won't move. So today I just scribbled in chalk on the fence what was in each row. My daughter added some art to my notes. That should get us over the forgetfulness hump until (if) the rainy season, by which time something identifiable had better be coming up there!

In Which I Earn a Day of Rest

Small child attempting to defend his lettuce against slugs.

Wow! My five-year-old is excited and so am I - "his" tomato has noticeably grown after only 7 days in the ground. This is what it's all about! Over the weekend I bought my final tomato plants at Westbrae Nursery. I like Westbrae a lot - it is not fancy like my other local nursery, and it has a wide selection. It also has a bathroom - anytime you're out and about with a small child, this is important information to have at your fingertips. It is also soon to have a beer garden so, yay.

Whatever.

Huffing and puffing, I got every last little loose end in the ground, except for green beans due to space considerations. I'm giving my sugar snap peas a week to impress me, then they've got to make room for beans. With one out of the five of my tomatoes, I did the whole black plastic thing - this time around, it was due to time pressure. Last year, I did all my intentional tomatoes with it and my volunteer was the most productive. Ergo, I wasn't too set on it this year.

It's a really pleasant sense of accomplishment to have almost everything in, in a timely manner and with the kids participating in their modest way!

Planting Time, Fun Time

I did nothing productive in the garden all weekend and was feeling uninspired, like it was just another errand, when I pulled up to OSH this morning. Then I caught sight of their garden displays and my blood started pumping. I got my

No wheelbarrow? Just grab one of the many dilapidated big wheels lying around.

baby in the cart and started piling stuff in, remembering about halfway through my un-funded shopping spree that oh yeah, I came with a list. $28  later I had a good start on my garden plan and a full slate for the afternoon.

When the kindergartener came home, I reviewed with him his mini-plan and let him pick out his marigold colors. After last year when not a single marigold seed I planted from an entire pack - and not from the dollar store, thank you very much! - sprouted, I'm taking no chances and bought a multicolor six-pack to guard the tomatoes. I verified at checkout that they still give a lifetime guarantee on plants. You might end up being sorry about that, OSH, by the time my family has a chance to kill all these.

Spring is Put Your Child to Work Season

Onto the hard work. I still have some lettuce, onions, and cilantro in the ground that I didn't feel ready to yank, although I did clear out some miniscule beets (terrible disappointment this past season), satellite cilantro, and radishes. Otherwise, I spread out some of the organic soil enrichment compound I bought today. Last year's manure worked fine except it wasn't organic and it reeked, so I thought I'd try something different. This may also be the sign of the real gardener - fixing what isn't broken in hopes of breaking it in a different way. Anyway... so I have more of a growing patch by patch thing going on since I'm leaving some areas alone that are currently planted. It also breaks up the work, and I'll take any excuse for that.

Then I had my son come and supervise/participate in the digging of holes in his area - as much as he likes digging in dirt, his holes are never deep enough. Plus he's kind of fastidious and doesn't like to get his hands dirty in dirt (boogies, melted crayons, and picking out interesting things from the trash can are no problem though). He got Sungold cherry tomatoes, as close to a sure thing as I could provide him, two marigolds, and Drunken Woman lettuce start. On a whim, we also threw in Cinderella's Coach pumpkin seeds since I had such success with it last year. He got bored and wandered off to decorate some craft sticks with planting labels.

Elsewhere, I planted the purple cherry from Flora Grubb with its guardian marigold, a basic zucchini, and another round of pumpkin seeds in the ground. I bought a Genovese basil at OSH and repotted it. Literally as I was in the middle of that, I noticed that my small pot in which I planted basil seeds months ago has begun sprouting. How about that. Pesto for Everyone!!! Ha, I say that now, as if nothing could ever happen between now and Pesto Time.

This gives a good sense of the scale of the cilantro. As my son said, "IT'S OUT OF CONTROL."

I still have much more to buy on my list, so I'll be hitting up my local independent nurseries by the weekend. I also need to figure out where I'm putting all these seeds, including the flowers (ugh) my daughter made me buy today because they were PINK (double ugh), and I need to consult with Mr. Undergardener about what he's willing to squeeze into his turf, the front yard. Spring planting season is busy but, dare I say, exciting.

Wherein Rain Buys Me Some Time, AKA Planning Your Garden Pt. 2

The elusive rain is falling as we speak, crushing my plans - I even had it written in my datebook! - for planting. That's okay; I can spend a little more time reviewing my plans and buying strategy.

This year, my garden plan started with the kindergartener requesting his "own little garden", probably based on the Milly-Molly-Mandy story in which she is gifted a surprise plant for her garden plot. I made him a land grant last fall and nothing came up, as so often is the case when I do ad hoc sowing, so I want to wrap his plot in with the bigger picture and hopefully facilitate some success... or at least a sprout or two.

Next, I had to soothe the three-year-old who was burning with injustice that she was not going to get her own little garden. "You'll be mommy's number one helper!" Uh-huh, she's heard that one before and it's starting to wear thin.

Then, I consulted my copy of Pam Peirce's Golden Gate Gardening, which points me to the edibles that should be planted April-May, allowing of course for microclimate-based margins of error. We live in the cooler, breezier band so generally I follow Peirce's recommendations for foggier areas although the fog cover actually varies quite a bit year to year here. From the long wish list of spring plants, I slotted spaces into a sketch of my vegetable garden (leaving space for my son's). This weeded out the lower priorities and plants that have a shot at midsummer or fall planting. There's also a short list that I may try in our front yard, always a problem because I forget to water out there... so lower priority plants get a chance to impress me with their drought resistance, ha.

My final aspirational list of plants and seeds to sow this spring - let's say between now and Mother's Day: 5 tomatoes (three cherry and two standard), zucchini, pumpkin, basil, lettuce, cilantro, beans, sugar snap peas, lemon verbena, and cucumber. Now I have to make it to the nursery/ies and fulfill this lengthy shopping list!

Planting on Impulse

Speaking of garden planning... didn't do any of that, but did get inspired by the warm weather to put a lot of shoulder season seeds in the ground this afternoon. The kids participated - not saying "helped" because that sets expectations incorrectly - with digging in compost, sprinkling seeds, and watering. I insist on covering up the seeds myself because "gentle" is just not in their vocabularies.

We sowed beets, green onions, cilantro, sugar snap peas, and lettuce in the ground, and basil in a small container. We didn't put in too many of any one crop. It was a bit of a frenzy to use up the 2013 seed packets. (Although my husband says that doesn't matter.) Can't wait to see the results!

Unseasonability

I took advantage of both kids being out of the house to dash outside and sow some seeds that might actually have more than a 50% chance of developing without my "assistants". I put in Bibb lettuce, beets, and another round of snow peas. My first set of peas are doing great (by my low standards, that is) - we get a few off it every day and they are crunchy and tasty. At least that's what my kids tell me; I hardly ever get to try one myself. My existing Salad Bowl lettuce and cilantro are doing fine; some beet leaves are peeping up, and I do believe that the radishes are up to something in their container. Otherwise, nothing the kids and I sowed a few weeks ago is visible. That's how it goes in the wide world of potager-ing. The forecast is for 70F today. What the what! I can't blame my seeds for getting confused; I know I am. My toddler wore shorts yesterday and I didn't have a leg to stand on to tell her she shouldn't.

Our Garden is Beautiful

My 2 y.o. and I spent some time this morning gardening together. No matter how little I feel like gardening, or how little I'm looking forward to the drudgery of winter gardening, just getting out there and doing it with a little helper puttering nearby is sweet. Bonus: It leaves me with an (undoubtedly illusory) feeling of accomplishment. Today, after I turned over a patch about 4'x4', she and I planted cilantro, beets, carrots, and "Salad Bowl" lettuce (the latter in ground as well as in a pot that I had just yanked basil from - call it an experiment). I enhanced the soil with some of my special Recycling Center compost; fingers crossed. I pulled out the basil (sniff; it was so good to me this year) and a Roma tomato. I showed the baby how to break up soil clumps with her little shovel, and she trotted after me when I took things out to the green waste. We picked a few golden cherries and took a break to munch them. And when we were done, she wiped her hands on her jeans and announced, "Our garden is beautiful!"

I had to agree.

Fall Planting: Beets, Peas, Lettuce

Checking out the last of the golden cherries

Planted today - it had been on my to-do list for about two weeks but everything else - such as planning for the world's best Angry Birds birthday party, coming up this weekend - took precedence. On a lovely 70-degree day, took the 2 y.o. out there for some "help" (company) to plant a third sowing (this go-round's count) of salad bowl lettuce and cilantro. Planted two rows of beet seeds, one from this year and one from 2008 that my husband had saved (they WERE yummy golden beets, but my hopes are not high), and - a first for me - snow peas. Mixed advice from Pam Peirce on all the beets and peas but I figured worth a try. Anytime I have the time and ability to plant, I try to, with whatever *could* theoretically work at that time of year, +/- a month (or two).

The contemporary seeds I planted today (2008 beets not shown)

My "helper" hard at work dropping pea seeds all over the place

Fall Planting

Got all fired up to do fall planting now that my tomatoes seem to be slowing down, and rushed right out to buy beet, snow pea, and carrot seeds. Not until the next day did I check in with Golden Gate Gardening... and find I'm completely off the mark. Maybe I could take a risk and put the beets in, but the other two, no. Always over-ambitious... I don't know if that's the mark of the novice gardener, or just A gardener.