New Year New Garden

Basil
Onions

Ok. So I haven't blogged since September but looking back on stuff from last year I thought about how nice it was to have a record of the garden and when I was doing things to it. So last year at this time it was so much warmer and so much spring-ier. This will be the longest Portland has gone into the year without a 60 degree day. Plus it has been raining, and raining, and raining. We have to paint some siding and it needs 24 hours to dry and since we got it a month ago there has not been one period of 24 hour dryness.

Last year I direct seeded everything and I felt like some stuff took either forever to come up or I put it in the ground way to late. So this year I am starting some seeds inside. So far I have some onions, basil, celery, and lettuce. I planted them around March 11th. They are all germinated and becoming great little plants. I hope to have them in the garden one month from when they were planted. I hope our nice neighbors are going to let us borrow their rototiller again this year.

I am going to start some more seeds inside next month.

Yay for the second planting!

A little Lima beans still wearing his hat.

The Radishes Thriving

I am seeing much better progress with the garden after doing that second planting. Carrots germinated, lettuce and spinach and kale are growing. Beets are looking beet like. We even harvested enough radishes and greens for a salad this week. We are having a very very wet june. For example we got more rain last sunday than we usually do in the entire month. There is actually some sun in the forecast and I fully expect my garden to pick up the pace on production. The tomatoes I put into the ground seem to be doing great. I accidentally placed some of the potted tomatoes to close to a shed and they got a bit water logged. They are looking a little mangy but have started to flower. Hopefully they the sun will perk them up as well. I acquired a another 4 tomato plants from a neighbor with extra. Bringing my tomato total to 15 . Lima beans just started sprouting and I am dreaming of fresh lima bean puree already!

Garden Second Planting.

So. The first planting had mixed results. I don't know exactly what I expected but it was more for some reason. So I have curbed my harvest expectations and since it is only May I am ok with that. The beets germinated for the most part. I would say about 80 % or maybe a bit more. I filled in holes in my rows with extra seeds today. I got 0% germination on carrots and onions. I replanted the rows.. I am hoping I just jumped the gun and it was too cold for them or something. So I waited 3.5 weeks before giving up.. here's to another three more weeks before I scour some garden centers for veggie starts.

The greens are coming up well and the radishes are thriving.

So my new expectations are salads, with beets, and radishes ... oh and tomatoes.

I bought tomato starters from the farmers market. We have a nice mix of canning tomatoes, heirlooms, and cherry. We are doing 11 plants this year and they all seem to be doing fine despite some late frosts and an obscene amount of hail storms. One already has a flower!

On the bright side my expectations for herbs have already been exceeded! They are all growing so well! My dill is already a few feet high. Cilantro is going nuts. My herb planters already look full! Pictures to follow.

The Garden.. Day 1.

The stars aligned and I finally planted some seeds! I am direct sowing everything except for the Celery. I just read the package and direct sowing the celery is not recommend.. so i guess I will try some small pots on a windowsill to start them. I suppose I am also not starting the tomatoes from seed either. I am going to wait until the mothers day plant date to get them in the ground. I picked up could cheapo plants at the grocery store and we plan on getting some heirloom varieties at the farmers market. I am going to have 11 plants. I thought this sounded like a lot until the neighbor came over and said he plants 26.. so now I am hoping it will be enough!

Anyway about the garden. I put in two types of carrots (purple and white). Radishes- a variety pack and some red meat. 4 types of onions.. Storage, Candy, Bunching and Scallions. Three types of beets -chioggia beets, Golden, and Early Wonder. Arugula, Romaine, Kale, Chard, Spinach. With the exception on beets these are all my staple foods. We just really like beets.

They next round of planting when the soil gets warmers will include cucumbers and lima beans.

I can't wait for something to germinate. It has only been one night but the suspense is killing me!

Seeds are here!

My seed order came in the mail the other day. So I am one step closer to a vegetable garden! Now if only we could get that plot rototilled!

Seed list

Celery- I got Red Venture Celery. I love the idea of getting vegetables in different colors than I am accustomed to.

Carrots - I have two variety that I will try. One is Purple and one is White.

Onions- Redbeard scallions, bunching onions, storage onions, and candy onions. We love onions. We went through 5 lbs last week! Can't wait to eat some straight from the garden.

Lots of Greens - Romaine lettuce, Spinach, Kale, Chard.. also tops from carrots, radishes, beets.

Radish - I got a variety pack and some that are red on the inside. These are mainly for Joe. I still have bad childhood associations with them. I will be that ones from my own garden will persuade me into liking them.

Beets - We love beets. We got a bright red early variety, golden, and chioggia. Yum I can't wait!

Beans - I thought a lot about beans. I am just trying out one kind this year. Lima. They are a bush bean for some reason needed to have something for pole beans to climb up seems intimidating. Maybe next year.

Cucumbers- A Pickling variety. Hmmm we made our very first batch of pickles last year. Hopefully 6 plants will produce enough for us.

Melon - There is a bed which is already raised that we just decided to use .. so why not try our hand at some melon growing.

Squash - Also in the new plot we will grow some butternut squash.


I didn't want to grow anything inside our first year. Again it sounds complicated. So only direct seeding for us. That being said we are going to have to buy some starts for somethings. Like tomatoes, and all of the herbs I want to start.

Also in that picture is a Garden Planner book that my sister-in-law gave Joe and I as a wedding gift. So far I have recorded our whole ornamental garden in it's pages. There is also a section to keep track of seeds, and a calendar of todos. It is the perfect gift as I love to be organized!

Garden Planning.

I have made lists. Mapped our our small plot on graph-paper. Thought about it some more. I think it is time to get some seeds. We are mostly going to plant greens. We eat lots and lots of greens. Currently we eat a head of lettuce and a bunch of spinach a week. This could be much more. Every morning at least a cup of spinach goes into our smoothies. I could easily add sauteed greens as a side to many of our dinners. The plan is spinach, arugula, devils tongue lettuce, kale, and swiss chard. In the summer we generally spent 5 dollars a week on Farmers Market greens. The other big component is going to be beets. We love beets. Farmers market beets are the best but usually we can't justify the expense to eat them as often as we like. Bunches of beets are usually about 3 dollars and only come with 3 small to medium beets! So I plan on 2-3 varieties if there are extra I will try my hand at pickling. Carrots are anther big thing that we eat. We went through 5 lbs in the last two weeks! I don't want to plant orange carrots instead I am going to do a purple variety and a white one. Then there will be scallions, bunching onions, and celery to round out our food staples. We are excited about the idea of canning and pickling so I am going to grow some pickling cucumbers as well. We are also going to plant at least 7 if not more tomato plants.
I am looking to get seeds from Uprising Seeds and Territorial Seed. I will check some racks this weekend so I don't have to pay for shipping and can support some local stores.
13 Days til our Chicks arrive!