Gardening: March 2004 Archives

I was originally going to title this post, "All Dressed Up and No Place to Go." When we had our first snap of warm weather a few weeks ago, I ran right out and made three raised beds (I'd made the fourth last fall.) I filled them with some soil and compost and... now I have to wait.

We were enjoying weather in the fifties and even in the low sixtes, but it's gotten much colder again, especially at night. My sources tell me that it's not too early to start planting things like peas and lettuce -- "plant as soon as the soil can be worked" -- but I'm still nervous about doing too much planting. I am terrified that I jumped the gun on the rhubarb -- I found some on March 12 and planted it that very afternoon, just in time for the cold weather to come back. I am anxious for the survival of these roots. When I planted them, they had a few little stems coming, maybe an eighth of an inch thick; the weak little leaves withered but the stems themselves seem to be hanging in there. I mulched them with leaves for the coldest nights; I just checked them and all of them still have good turgor in those little stems -- and one of them has a few leaves getting ready to come out. The rhubarb plant from last year is doing great and has plenty of fat stalks with big green leaves coming up.

I have also planted peas and mesclun but I haven't seen any germination. The garlic I planted last fall is doing fine, and I picked up some more from the garden center for a spring planting.

I am delighted with the success of the seeds I started inside under a grow-light. Almost all my eggplants have germinated, and some are starting to get their first true leaves. The parsley and geraniums are coming up too. I tried starting lettuce and broccoli indoors and I'm not sure how good an idea that was; they are leggy, and flopping all over the place. This week I must start the tomatoes and basil.

The flower bulbs are coming up now too -- not quite as precisely choreographed as I had hoped, but then I do have spring fever. The crocuses are all up, untouched by deer or squirrel, and the first daffodils have bloomed. The outdoor hyacinths, in white and deep blue, are coming too -- the first buds are starting to open.

In the next few days I want to check the schedule and start hardening off some lettuce seedlings to transplant outside and start doing some direct sowing: lettuce, mesclun, corn salad, parsnips, and carrots. I'd like to find some little gadget to help me plant the carrots and lettuce -- the seeds are so darn tiny!

This is a picture of my vegetable garden. Yes, I know the bed frames aren't quite level, and if I could go back in time I go to last spring and say, "Don't waste your time double digging! Make raised beds, and space them at least 24 inches apart! Don't bother with the brick paths, they are a pain to level and you'll have drainage problems!"

The back bed by the fence is the rhubarb bed, and if you look closely at the corner you might see the rhubarb from last year coming up. The green stems in the front fence-side bed are garlic. The pink strings are marking off one-foot squares to help with plant spacing. That bed will be the future home of the parsnips and carrots, I think. The back left bed is where I planted the peas and will be the home of summer lettuce, and the front left bed -- the sunniest -- will be for spring lettuce and then for tomatoes, eggplant, and garlic. But I keep changing my mind about where I want to put the tomatoes.

and we just got three inches dumped on us. The kids looked out the window and said "This stinks!"

I am jealous Peony! It is hard to think raised beds when the grass dissapeared yet again.

Last week I was working like a busy beaver on the raised beds -- dragging the boards home, painting them with linseed oil, flipping them, painting the other side, and finally painting them green. Over the weekend my husband helped me assemble them, and yesterday I wedged them into their spots. Now I'll just need to fill them and I'll be ready to roll.

I planted some lettuce (mesclun) in my existing bed but I'll wait till

The weather was a tease all last week: warm, but intermittently rainy, so I never knew how much time I had to prep the boards. Sunday was perfect -- sunny, mild -- so we had a good time working in the yard.

All of us, that is, except for Hambet. Poor kid, all his efforts at yardwork were thwarted by his unfeeling parents. Don't pour all the grass seed out at once! No digging holes in the lawn! No rocks in the garden! No waving rakes in the air! Bricks are not for throwing!

Finally we gave him the hose, and that put a smile back on his face (and the cold, cold water dripping down Daddy's back.) Note to self, Hambet needs boots ASAP.

Maybe next year he'll be able to follow directions well enough to have his own little planter to tend.

I think I'm going to be scarce again this week -- we're supposed to have weather in the fifties, sixties, and even into the seventies! So I will be working on getting my garden ready.

Last year I was dig, dig, digging away and all for nothing -- the rain carried away soil, soil amendments, and seeds alike. This year I'm doing what I should have done last year: making raised beds.

I just got back from the Big Orange Store with 12 4-foot boards, screws, angle brackets, and a clamp. The plan is to coat the lumber with boiled linseed oil, assemble them into boxes, maybe add a bit of paint to address my husband's aesthetic concerns, line them with plastic, and them fill 'em up with soil enriched with peat moss and compost.

In our area (zone 6B- 7) I can start some planting some things as early as March 15, so I want to get a place ready for those early plantings: peas, garlic, rhubarb, and some early lettuce.

My attempts to force hyacinths and tulips this winter failed utterly -- next winter I'll just buy them at the store -- but I do see little bulbs peeking up already, including the ones in my bulb planters. I also see new growth in all of the lamb's ears (including the ones I thought were done for.) Looks like the sage and rosemary made it, too. And this morning, I went out to the the rhubarb bed to peek under the leaf mulch. There it was -- the first little green leaves, all curled up like a baby's fist, on tiny little red stalks.

This week I'm also going to be starting some seeds. I'm going to try eggplant again ("Rosa Bianca" and those white eggplants) and lettuce, along with tomatoes and marigolds. I want to plan out my flower bed and see what else I want to grow.

Last fall I mentioned trying some rooting hormone. I took cuttings of rosemary and basil. The basil didn't make it, but the rosemary did great -- every cutting "took." It's continued to thrive indoors through the winter. It's been so gratifying to be able to just walk over to the windows and snip off a few leaves for cooking. I used to kill every houseplant in my custody, so just having the things survive has been a thrill.