With my thoughts on the less tangible aspects of our big Memorial day planting weekend in my last post, I didn’t quite get to the practical parts of our days. So, I’m back to fill you in a bit on that now. (Yes, I realize I’m a bit late with this post–I’m still back on Memorial day! I promise that my posts will catch up to the present day soon…) Anyway, on saturday morning, Ben and Ian headed over to our community garden plot to add some peat, lime, and a little bit of greensand, and to take another pass with the rototiller, while Connor and I went to the Portland farmers market to buy seedlings. I usually start my own seedlings (with mixed success, I have to admit….), but this year I just didn’t get to it at all. Fortunately, our local farmers market has an excellent selection–at very good prices. I picked up 12 Amish Paste tomato plants, 6 slicing-type tomato plants, 2 cherry tomato plants, 4 green bell pepper plants, 10 broccoli plants, 12 brussels sprouts plants, 10 hot pepper plants of mixed varieties (Jalapeno, Ancho, and Anaheim), and 1 tomatillo plant, as well as seedlings of thyme, sage, rosemary, oregano, and Italian parsley. In the afternoon I headed over to the garden to lay out the beds and paths, and figure out where everything was going to go. (We had a lot more figuring to do this year, since we just doubled the size of our garden, and all of a sudden have a lot more space to work with….yay!) Yes, I admit that I am a bit compulsive with the tape measure when it comes to laying out garden beds….they don’t have to be exact, but it drives me nuts when they’re visibly crooked. As I mentioned in my last post, Ben thankfully is happy to let me be the one to obsess about all these details, as long as I agree to make the paths wide enough, and not crowd the tomato plants, which are his major garden-related pet-peeves. Anyway, pretty much the rest of the weekend was spent planting. I got all the seedlings in the ground (though the herbs, all the hot peppers, and the two cherry tomato plants are in pots on our patio at home), and from seed I planted cucumbers, three kinds of kale (Winterbor, Toscano, and Red Russian), zucchini, swiss chard, basil, dill, cilantro, a couple kinds of lettuce, and few greens for salads (arugula, kyona mizuna, and claytonia). Our two raised beds in our back yard, which unfortunately don’t get full sun, we reserve just for green beans, as that’s what we’ve found does well there. Connor and I planted those a bit later, with a combination of bush and pole beans. We still have a few lingering items to plant, but pretty much everything is in. Now I’m just looking forward to seeing all those tiny seeds beginning to sprout!
tim
July 29th, 2014 at 15:42