Gardening Report March 5, 2020

A lot of activity on our plots this week.

No, this is not a writing report.

We harvested our leafy green winter crops and mulched those that failed to grow (looking at you, carrots & celery).  Spring is better suited for fruit bearing plants such as tomatoes, squash, etc.

One lesson we learned is to plant successively; i.e., stagger our planting out by a couple of weeks.

We had all our lettuce, kale, and cabbages come in at the same time this year, and so ended up with more than we could use (luckily friends and neighbors took our surplus).  Next year we’ll plant the cabbages, etc. a week apart so we’ll have fresh greens for a longer stretch of time.

We’re planning on 3 or 4 tomato plants this spring.  Summer vegetables typically produce fruit for several weeks so as long as we keep pluckin’ we’ll have plenty.

(We’ve still got frozen tomatoes and sauce in our freezer from last year, so our overlap should work fine.)

Prepping the garden means uprooting all the old vegetation, turning the soil, adding amendments and chicken manure, then raking it to get it all mixed in well.

We then lay out our stepping stones in anticipation of our planting pattern, then re-set the irrigation hoses and check for leaks / misaimed spray / etc.

Buy or make a few tomato cages, then we’re ready to start planting.

Hopefully we’ve gotten all the above done before this post goes up, because come Thursday the 5th we’re on our way to San Diego Comic Fest.

Once we’re back, we start planting.

© Buzz Dixon