Hey all! It's been awhile. Almost a year in fact. Truth is, I've been slacking with this blog. My dad and I have been busy planting and gardening for three months already! We started our first seedlings mid-January. Of course we kept saying we needed to write a post, take photos, blah blah blah, but we've been lazy. Unacceptable. Gardening is an amazing journey that I want to share with everyone who cares to listen to our ramblings on this site. There is something magical about watching plants grow before your eyes, and of course eating fresh produce is always the best part!
But as of now, it is opening season of gardening cross fit. Crop fit as the subway commercial cleverly said. Whatever you call it, there is no denying that Spring means hours of manual labor. Sweaty, dirty, gardening. And I wouldn't have it any other way. It really is the best time of the year :) As all the flowers are coming up and buds start to form on the trees, all I can think about getting seeds and seedlings in the ground. This past Saturday we officially started the garden by breaking out the rototiller and re-arranging the kale patch. Of course we wound up breaking the rototiller because the ground is super swampy (and since our soil is just a bunch of clay, it's basically cement), but it did feel good to get dirty for the first time this season.
Let's call these the five views of our garden. Remember them, because they will be changing quite often as we continue to prep and plant. Right now the entire garden is quite dreary and begging to be tilled! Thank god for the rototiller because I think I would rip my back in half if I had to turn over this plot by hand.
My obsession is perennial plants. Who doesn't like a plant that you don't have to plant?! Now most vegetables need to be replanted every year, however there are a few that never fail to come back all by themselves. Take chives for example. They are always the first plants growing in the spring, and they come back bigger each year. This time they invaded my basil box that is next to where they are planted. Agressive little herbs! Looks like I will be giving some baby chive plants away to friends and family.
Both our scallion and onion patch started growing again without any help. Must be a onion family thing. Bottom line...plant something in the onion family.
I'm super excited for our grapes to start growing. They are such a gorgeous vine, and the fresh grapes are out of this world! That is, if the squirrels miss any. Squirrels are our biggest pests. I despise them.
Here you have our plan for water control. We get a lot of water flowing through and pooling in our yard due to it's elevation and that of our neighbors yards. Our soil is also 99% clay. Not a good combination when you are trying to cultivate plants! Check out this post from last year to see just how bad the garden floods. We don't want any repeats of that. So we are trenching the outside of the entire garden and creating channels to control the flow of water and keep it moving away from the plants. Basically we are building raised garden beds. I'm cringing typing this because it's going to be a ton of work. Anyone want to grab a shovel and help dig dirt?!
Back to the kale planting. I was surprised to find that almost ten kale plants from last year survived this harsh winter and started pushing new leaves! As we were only able to till a small part of the kale patch (that we are extending this year), I dug up the living plants and replanted them in their new spot. What really surprised me is there were another ten plants that I had started late last year (mid-September) that were also growing again! They were so small when all the snow came that I thought for sure they were goners. I know that kale is cold hardy, however we've been getting such rough winters here in New Jersey that I never expected any to live. Especially not young seedlings! Anyway, I collected all the living babies and moved them to the back kale patch with the year old plants.
This year my dad and I are selling veggie seedlings out of my friends local florist, so I had started a bunch of kale plants indoors last month. As I started much too many to sell, I threw the extras in the ground because they were quickly outgrowing their containers in the basement. I'm going to wait until we can turn over more of the kale patch before putting seeds in the ground because the clay is almost impossible to work with when it has been sitting under ice and snow for the past few months. This year we're growing red russian kale, curly kale, and my personal favorite, dino or lacinato lake. I'm going to let my dad share how we started our seedlings this year and how he made our basement "plant friendly". Seriously, our basement glows at night.
If you are planning on growing any type of dark, leafy greens this year (kale, swiss chard, collard greens, spinach, arugula, etc) then now is the time to get them in the ground! They are cold hardy and the sooner you get them in the ground the sooner you will be munching on scrumptious salads, sautes, and other yummy dishes. As soon as the tire of our rototiller is fixed we will be back to work, turning over the soil so I can finish planting the kale patch, as well as get my collards, chard, and spinach patches started. Don't procrastinate! You'll thank me later :)
One last thought; this year I am giving each kale plant less space when planting. Most places say leave at least 12" between plants, however last year I believe I could have had them slightly closer together and they would have been just fine. More bang for my buck without sacrificing the health of the plant. I left about 6-8" between each plant this year so we'll see how that goes!
~Margaret
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