Sunday, January 24, 2010

It's That Time of Year Again

Time to figure out what seeds to buy and start growing inside. I want to grow everything, but I only have so little space this is really tough!

2010 PLANTING PLAN

1. BED ONE (large + fence) 42 x 94.5 = 3.5' x 7.9' = 27.6' = 27.5'
Spring: lettuce
Summer: Trombonchino squash, 2 italian frying, 2 green bell, 2 red or something bell peppers
fall: nothing

2. BED TWO (small + fence) 31.5 x 46 = 2.6' x 3.8' = 9.8 sq ' = 10'
Spring: mustard greens
Summer: cucumbers & endives
Fall: nothing

In front of beds 1 & 2: gem marigolds
Front: calendula bed
Fence: climbing nasturtiums

3. BED THREE (small) 31.5 x 47.5 = 2.6' x 3.9' = 10.14 = 10'
Spring & Summer: Strawberries and Chard

Behind bed three: Chamomile & Borage, lavender

4. BED FOUR (large) 58.5 x 126 = 4.9' x 10.5' = 51.45' = 51.5'
Spring: radishes & arugula
Summer: soybeans, cavili squash (Parthenocarpic), Chinese cabbage, hot pepper
fall: lettuce, carrots & turnips

OTHER SIDE OF YARD
5. BED FIVE (large + fence)
Spring: peas, radishes
Summer: tomatoes & jalapeno
Fall: nothing

6. BED SIX (large + fence) 39" x 94" - 3' x 7' - 21 sq '
Spring: Carrots & turnips
Summer: same
Fall: arugula, mustard greens, mache

nearby: bush nasturtiums

7. BED SEVEN (shade, in ground)
Same perennials - ferns, mint, shisho (will hopefully reseed), yarrow, anise hyssop

8. NEW BED EIGHT:
Spring: ???
Summer: Emerite beans & leeks, basil

Well, that was easier than last year. I already went and bought all my seeds! Good thing too because the squash I wanted was only sold by one place, I'm sure it will sell out. Here's what I bought, and that's all I'll need. Everything else I have saved from last year.

  • Cucumbers - Diva (slicer), Cool Breeze & Rocky (both mini picklers). All 3 are Parthenocarpic.
  • Endive (witloof) - Totem OG
  • Nasturtiums, climbing - Jewel of Africa
  • Nasturtiums, bush- Kaleidscope OG
  • Summer squash, bush - Cavili, also Parthenocarpic
  • Chinese cabbage - Lettucy type
  • Carrots - Napoli OG
  • Leeks - King Richards (early & long) & Giant Musselburgh (old heirloom, very winter hardy)
The only other thing I'll have to buy are a few pepper, tomato and basil plants, since I think it would be too much to grow from seed inside. I will probably do the cucumbers and squash inside to get an early start, as well as marigolds like I did last year. I'll get the others from this nursery in NJ: http://www.chileplants.com

2 comments:

Vegan Wheekers said...

Hi! I'm looking to start a vegan organic garden this year in our little backyard. May I ask where you get your seeds from (organic, non-GMO) or what company?

I'll be reading through your blog to get tips as I'm totally new to gardening. Thanks for sharing your gardening experience with all of us!

Aubade said...

Hi there, good question. To be honest, not all of the seeds I bought are organic, and some are even hybrids. I started out trying to buy only heirloom and organic, but due to a couple of problems I bought some more rare varieties that are hybrids - for example, the cucumbers I had were attacked by pretty much every disease possible so I had to get resistant, parthenogenic (no bees required, so I can keep them under rowcovers and away from evil cucumber beetles) types. Those types of seeds were only available from a few places, so I couldn't be that picky.

But in previous years when I bought more common seeds, I had more luck. My favorite places to get heirloom and organic in those cases are:
http://www.groworganic.com
and
http://www.seedsavers.org/

Even this year I did have some luck. In the list in my above post, if they say OG they are organic, and a couple of them are heirloom, I just didn't write it out. I got most of those at
http://www.johnnyseeds.com/

Nowadays organic is pretty popular so you can even get some at big places like parkseed.com or even Lowe's & Home Depot. It also depends where you are too - the West coast has WAY more veganic gardening supplies than we have here in NJ. :-(

So phew! That's a long answer, haha! (I could talk gardening forever *grin*) But the thing is, it depends what specific varieties you want - each store will only have so many. I actually had to get all the ones I wanted from 3 different online stores yesterday.

(the other two were territorialseed.com, which was the only one with cavili squash and earlmay.com which was the only one that still had the cool breeze cucumber in stock)

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