The first of the season's garden seed catalogs came in the mail yesterday. Three years ago, I never would have guessed that'd I'd be excited about seed catalogs. Something about the move to Ohio has changed me-- I think it's the magic dirt. Anything I plant does really well here, unlike in New Orleans, where gardening was a constant battle against sweltering heat, giant insects, and finding a vegetable-- any vegetable- capable of growing in subtropical zone 9.
The burning question: What to plant this year. My first two years in this house I stuck with basics. I planted 6 cherry tomato plants, 6 roma tomato plants, three zucchini plants, and 6 green pepper plants. It's not that I have an affinity for these. It's just that the local school has a fundraising plant sale and this is what they sell. The first year, we got 1 measly zuchini, 20 pounds of roma tomatoes, no green peppers, and enough cherry tomatoes for me to snack on while mowing the lawn and mulching.
I rearranged the plants in the second year and got bumper crops of all of them. I mean bumper. Baskets and baskets of veggies, so much so that I had to go buy a special cookbook featuring those vegetables. We got so much we couldn't use it all OR give all of it away so many tomatoes and such just rotted on the vine. (Time to buy a chest freezer?) Between that and our farm co-op share, we didn't buy a single vegetable all summer. Except maybe some potatoes and spinach.
Bear in mind that the only space we have for gardens are traditional, front of the house flower beds. Our backyard is all shade. I'd till up my entire front yard and plant if I could, but the neighbors would have heart attacks. So we've learned to do a lot with a little space.
This year, I'm not going to let hard-won fruit rot on the vine. Here's this year's rough plan:
- Potatoes: I'm going to plant three varieties of potatoes in garbage cans in my back yard. Why garbage cans, you ask? Because that way you know where to dig when it's time to get a potato. Put them in the ground and you'll spend all day digging holes looking for them. My grandpa used to plant them in garbage cans and with great success. Now I'm going to try it.
- Peanuts. The hubby loves them, so I'm going to plant a few in some containers on the front porch. If I stick it in a pot, it'll look decorative and minimize the ire of the neighbors.
- Tomatoes. I'm going to cut our crop in half, to 3 roma and 3 cherry plants. That should cut our annual yield to something more manageable-- like 20 pounds instead of last year's 40!
-Zucchini. Plant one and it takes over. So this year I'm literally only planting ONE. That should be enough for salads and the occasional loaf of zucchini bread.
-Watermelon. Mmmm. Mmmm. Who doesn't love watermelon? I wouldn't normally have enough room for this, but I found a dwarf vine that is only 3 feet long, so where the zucchini once stood, the watermelon will now be king.
-Greens. We love basil, cilantro and spinach, so I'm going to dedicate last year's green pepper space to these three crops and see if it goes anywhere.
-Strawberries. We planted a bunch of strawberry plants last year. They should be ready to spit out some fruit this year. I'm keeping my fingers crossed on that one.
I'm not sure if this is too ambitious a plan, considering we have our first baby on the way. But my mom assures me I'll feel fine when it's time to plant in May.
Veggie gardens may seem passe, but they really do save you a lot of money on groceries. We like that ours has supplied us with months of organic, delicious veggies for two years in a row. You can't beat that.
5 comments:
Sounds like a great list. I am also starting to plan, for the same reasons! Plant and seed catalogs have been arriving! :) Of course, snow is still arriving here too... so it's a tad hard to imagine being in the garden yet.
It's almost like tha catalog companies can read our minds. It may be snowing out, but we're pining for Spring flowers and veggies!
I still want to know how you rearranged your veggies? I had six tomato plants last year and only a tomato or two a week starting in August. That's not enough!
Let's see. The first year, I had tomatoes and green peppers in beds on both sides of my house. Turns out the sunlight falling on one side of the house was better for tomatoes, and on the other side was better for green peppers. So in year two, I planted all of the tomatoes on one side of the house and all of the green peppers on the other. It really made a huge difference. Both sides are technically full sun, but the pepper side gets about an hour less a day of direct light, which is enough to keep my peppers from melting off the vines, and was too little light to push tomatoes to grow to their full potential on that side.
Good evening,
I was just posting to say how great it is to read of your efforts to be more green! I too am trying to reduce my plastic-bag consumption.
I was inspired by your efforts and joined a co-op this year : I split a 1/2 share with a friend, of "Paige's Produce".
In unrelated news, you might know this already, but store Target has a nice selection of "eco-friendly" products on their website :
(edit : ah, the url is too long to read correctly here, heh. Oh well! If one searches from the main 'target.com' site, I am sure it will come up).
Take care!
* Geoff
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