Spring Veggies In!

Can I get a "hurrah!" for gorgeous weather?

I finally got my spring veggies planted and the weather was just perfect.

This is the latest I have ever been, in the 9 or 10 years that I have planted a vegetable garden.

It's kind of odd.

And oddly enough, I'm okay with it.

There was about a 2-day window a couple of weeks ago, which I missed.

It has been rainy, cold, and miserable ever since.

 So here we are, just skimming into May.

 

My husband asked if these would all be okay getting frosted.

Um, actually, they all coulda shoulda been planted a month ago. Ahem.

 

Once again, the garden will be expanded this spring.

So I put all these in on the right-hand side.

With the two terraces as options, I was able to rotate them all a little, at least.

 

Middle terrace, looking through the pea trellis.

So, we're going to have a whole mess of peas this year. I hope.

Rather than try for lines within my blocked-off area, my daughter and I just planted peas all throughout, about every 2 inches apart. Then I strung up 3 lines of trellising front to back in the terrace. I hoping that will take care of whatever comes up.

The front half is 'Oregon Sugar Pod II', boasting multiple disease resistance and heavy yields (seed from last year.)

Back half is 'Little Marvel Pea,' a shelling variety, new seed.

I think the shelling peas taste better, but the sugar pods are easier for the kids to munch on.

Neither variety claims to need staking, but I pretty much ignore those claims. Peas get to be such a tangled mess all over the ground otherwise.

Speaking of trellising, no pea tee-pee this year.

That didn't work out so well!

Instead, we put in some pavers as a little path front to back, for easy picking (and to avoid trampling other stuff that will be planted in a month.)

 

Carrots seeds were liberally sprinkled to fill in the whole block between the peas and the side of the terrace there. I expect to do a lot of thinning. That's okay, because the kids snap up those baby-sized carrots anyway.

The front half is 'Rainbow Blend': a mix of 'Atomic Red,' 'Lunar White,' 'Solar Yellow,' and 'Cosmic Purple.' The kids and I can hardly wait to see what comes up in front!

For the back half, I went with my favorite regular (i.e. boring) carrot: 'Scarlet Nantes.'

Even the baby helped sprinkle seeds for these.

Did I mention the thinning?

Yep, we'll be on top of that.

The bottom terrace has potatoes, beets and spinach.

 

I learned a few things about potatoes last year. Namely:

 

1. My kids won't eat the potatoes that have purple flesh.

Purple skin is cool, purple flesh--weird and yucky. Got it.

 

2. If the potato piece doesn't have actual roots coming out of the eye when you plant it, there's a good chance it will rot instead of growing.

Rotten potato slime is one of the nastiest, smelliest substances ever.

 

So I ended up with 5 hills/holes of 'Yukon Gold' and 4 of 'Viking.'

Viking on the left, Yukon Gold middle and right.

Every hole has at least 3 pieces with roots already growing out of the eyes, and 1-2 pieces with eyes that have not started growing yet. Insurance, I hope, for all 9 to produce healthy plants.

 

Beets are next. Not too big an area for them, about 2' wide.

My seed is 1-2 years old, so I don't know if we'll even get any.

Front half is 'Chioggia,' which is supposed to produce red and white stripey beets (what is it about unusual colors of vegetables? I'm such a sucker for those!)

Back half is 'Cylindra', supposed to be uniformly 6" long for easy slicing.

 

Finally, the section next to the terrace steps is spinach.

I made about 4 rows within the section.

In front I planted 'Tyee' again, to finish off the seed from last year. 

It's supposed to be extra-slow bolting.

In back I put 'Olympia Hybrid,' a smooth-leaf variety.

You'll notice: I didn't bother with onions this year.

I decided to use the space for what we love more.

I'll be interested to see how the later (but warmer) planting date affects the growth.