Vegetable Gardening

[GLC1968]

Careful with the kale! We had only 6 plants last year and we were overwhelmed with kale! We are *still* eating it (dried & frozen in soups) from last year! This year, I'm only planting 3 plants and that should be plenty.

I forgot to add that some of our seed potatoes arrived yesterday, so we'll also be planting those this weekend. AND, I'm going to build a cold frame type contraption to try sweet potatoes this year (they are hard to grow here due to short 'hot' season).

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

I think I'll start planting spinach next week.
Except for tomato plants, I grow everything from direct seeding out in the garden. I just can't deal with making trays full of tiny pots and providing them with light for weeks in the basement before planting. And no plans for a greenhouse yet....too many expensive house repairs this year.
Most everything i direct seeded last year did pretty well, so that's my method for now.

What else besides peas and spinach can you direct sow in the cold Spring ground?


Yesterday we put up the nesting boxes for our native bee pollinators, the blue orchard mason bees:

[tulip]

What else besides peas and spinach can you direct sow in the cold Spring ground?

radishes, carrots, arugula, some lettuces, mache and all sorts of good greens, kale etc (although I buy plants because it gets warm here pretty quickly), cilantro, parsley (soak seeds first), beets/chard, onion starts, shallots...

I'm sure there are others but those are the ones I can think of right off the bat. I like those mason bee houses. Better than having them drilling in the deck (or are those carpenter bees?)

[GLC1968]

radishes, carrots, arugula, some lettuces, mache and all sorts of good greens, kale etc (although I buy plants because it gets warm here pretty quickly), cilantro, parsley (soak seeds first), beets/chard, onion starts, shallots...

I'm sure there are others but those are the ones I can think of right off the bat. I like those mason bee houses. Better than having them drilling in the deck (or are those carpenter bees?)

Swiss chard, too!

Here we are also planting seed potatoes, onion starts and strawberries but it might be too early for that in NY.

Lisa - love the mason bee houses! We haven't put any up, but we have mason bees galore so I'm not sure we need to. They LOVE our early cherry and plum blossoms.

Today we bought two more apple trees, one pear tree and one cherry tree...time to pull out the shovel.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

I like those mason bee houses. Better than having them drilling in the deck (or are those carpenter bees?)

Yes, you are thinking of carpenter bees.
Mason bees do not drill into wood. They nest in crevices that already exist, they don't create tunnels. They like to nest in rocky stone walls or crumbling masonry, or in rotting logs- in the abandoned tunnels left over from tunneling beetles. They seal their nest cavities with little plugs of mud gathered from muddy ditches or damp clay earth.
Carpenter bees will drill their way into old wood on houses, but not the harmless little mason bee.

Thanks for the list of cold weather direct seeders... I will try the radishes, carrots, kale, beets, and Swiss chard- all of which I have seeds for. AFTER next week's predicted nighttime temperature dip into the 'teens. That'll probably be our last hard freeze.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Tonight is the last night of a fluke cold snap- the last night that will have temps in the teens. Forecast is much better from now on.

I've started direct seeding of some of the cool loving veggies...
spinach, kale, lettuces, some carrots, beets, scallions. Gotta run out and buy some radish and bok choy seeds- forgot to order them.
Due to you guys' comments last Fall, I now am planting both White Russian kale and Winter Red Russian kale for the first time. I got some very interesting new lettuces to try, too, along with my favorites (black-seeded Simpson, speckled Troutback, and mixed color butterhead).
Just planting one or two small 3' rows of each thing right now, will be doing succession planting this time around even more than i did last year. I'm tightening up the space between each row too- now only leaving 3" between rows instead of 4" or 5".
It's such a huge luxury to have my big new vegetable garden space this year!

Meanwhile, I'm still sprouting jars of alfalfa sprouts in the kitchen on a constant basis ever since December- it's been so nice to have absolutely fresh cool crunchy green sprout sandwiches all winter! Probably the biggest bargain out there, nutrition-wise, is growing your own sprouts. I keep two jars rotating at different stages of growth.

[copperlegend]

How do you do the sprouts? My boyfriend casually mentioned (blatant hint, perhaps?) that when he was growing up, his mom always had a jar of sprouts going, and he misses fresh sprouts in his sandwiches.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

How do you do the sprouts? My boyfriend casually mentioned (blatant hint, perhaps?) that when he was growing up, his mom always had a jar of sprouts going, and he misses fresh sprouts in his sandwiches.

I have two of these jars:
http://www.amazon.com/Quart-Glass-Sp...9727928&sr=8-3
They work well for me and I always keep the two going at different stages.
Once they are 'done' and you take them out of the jar, loosen them up a bit in a big bowl of cold water and rinse a little to rinse off the extra seed hulls. The rest of the hulls you just eat up anyway in the sprouts. One rounded tablespoon of alfalfa seeds fills the whole quart jar jam packed with sprouts. Easy to put in too many seeds, so I had to learn to hold back!