Leeks, Beets & ‘Extra’ Weeks

In this unusually mild winter where it’s looking a lot like it’s not going to freeze after February (actually, February itself is starting off in the 60s day and 40s at night), my recent attempts to clean out the beds so they can be prepped for early plantings has taken on a bit of urgency. Moon is waxing (rising) for the next 8 days, so I’ve been folding newspaper pots by the dozen while sitting here at the desk.

Waxing moon is for above-ground plantings, so I’ll be starting peas, collards, bib lettuce, spinach and kale over the next week. The little pots fit tightly into glass cake pans, which makes it easy to evenly water from the bottom, which encourages early root growth. These will go onto shelves built to the big south facing window in the library. From there the seedlings can go straight into the ground (paper pot and all) by mid-february. If it freezes after that the pea cage can be covered with plastic at night, and milk jugs with the top end cut off fit nicely over the new greens. A new rush of peas should be planted as soon as the moon turns waxing again.

Once the moon has passed full it will be time to plant seeds for root vegetables. Which for early spring are beets, bunching onions, leeks, potatoes, carrots and radishes. Now, radishes are best planted to ‘mark’ rows of direct-seeded crops beginning in April because they grow so quickly and can be harvested early as the primary seedlings get established. But I like to grow a row of radishes for the spicy little seed pods they produce after flowering, so those I’ll start in paper pots indoors and interplant in the bed with leaf lettuces around the first of March.

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Filed under Food Preservation, Food Production, Future Planning, Garden, Harvest, Health, Homestead, Hunger, Indoor Plants, Nutritition, Planters | Comment (0)

Window Flats and Newspaper Pots

February has always been “The Longest Month” of the year. Which is no doubt why they made it the shortest month of the year. It’s cruel, it’s cold, it’s interminable as the days get longer and the longing for spring becomes almost unbearable. So February is when I start my early spring crops in flats, place them on shelves in the big library window facing south. Up right now and looking good are the Russian Red kale, Winterbore kale, spinach, white and purple onions and a first rush of 60 pea plants.

This February has been warmer than most here in southern Appalachia, which gets our hopes up too high too fast, I know. We can bet real money that it’ll get very cold again very soon, and we just might get a blizzard in March. So I have been careful not to get ahead of myself.

Grandson built a moveable cold frame of salvaged windows that is definitely going to come in handy, but we haven’t really started on the soil turning yet. Need to do that, get the accumulated weeds out, and dig in some good compost. We built a nifty pea support contraption yesterday of PVC, over which we can add the actual string supports when the bed’s ready. Then we can plant the first rush seedlings on one side, and direct seed a second rush on the other side to extend our crop and harvest time. Spinach seedlings will go in with direct-seeded lettuces, and the kales will go into a separate bed I’ll interplant with radishes.

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Weird Planter Ideas

In another [post] the idea of porch and kitchen gardens was introduced. Growing herbs and some vegetables in containers in your own kitchen (if it has a sunny window or two), on your deck, porch or patio can be a lot of fun, and can lend personality to your environment through the different types of containers you choose and arrange.

There are some great ideas out there, as well as some wacky ones. You can add height with hanging planters, accessibility with window boxes, depth with different size containers arranged in groupings. You can build your own, go ‘thrifting’ at your neighborhood garage sales and secondhand shops, or raid the shed, garage, basement and attic. Heck, you can even put those discarded fixtures from when you remodeled the bathroom to eclectic use!

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Filed under Container Gardening, Cultivated Herbs, Garden, Indoor Plants, Landscaping, Planters, Porch Plants | Comments (2)