A Gardener's Retreat

We went over to the Community Garden today to take advantage of the weather and plant some seeds and starts. I had on my calendar to plant cabbage, kale and arugula around this time, and since there’s rain in the forecast, it seemed perfect.

We got our starts out at Walkers over the weekend – 6 cabbages, 6 parsley and a thyme plant.  I also had a bunch of kale seeds left over from last year, a Russian Red as I recall, and some more of that wild arugula.  

Once out at the garden, we realized that there was a lot to access.  Although at first glance, most plants seemed small, there was more action than we expected.  We have a full bed of peas, with seedlings around 4 inches high on average.  The lettuces, which seemed non-existent, are just small. I planted more red romaine to supplement.

On the more robust side, the spicy mesclun are doing great (planted more of them too) and the radishes getting appreciably bigger.  In between, there’s a nice carrot crop coming up, a lot more than I expected.  We’ll still have to replant a few patches but overall it’s looking good. 

Chris did a lot of work on the B&J plot north of us and it’s all over but the sifting for grass roots.  The turf is out.  This is great timing because we want to plant it in two weeks.  I guess we’ll be out there this weekend, weeding and prepping.

A final word on our herb bed which has been going for several years.  Although the echinacea are not as vigorous as I’d like, the chives are huge, and it looks like the lavender and sage are growing in really well after having been cut back almost to the ground last fall.  The thyme plant, which is small but tall, will keep them company.  Meanwhile, the chamomile Nancy gave us is starting to look comfortable — I hope it does well.  It makes the sweetest tea.

Here in early May, we’re in a bit of a gardening lull.  We planted lots of seeds a few weeks ago, and now we’re just watching our seedlings grow and waiting  for it to be warm enough to plant the next set of crops.  Meanwhile, the weather has been cooperative and our garden has gotten enough rain to keep  it happy.    

Some things are doing better than others of course.  Our radishes are all up and there are lots of them.  They now have second leaves. 

The peas were a mixed bag (not literally but figuratively).  Some of our Sugar Ann Snap Peas came up and others did not.  In fact, only the ones planted in earliest April came up as they should have.  The others gave us less than 50% germination.  My theory is that the soil got too warm too fast.

Additionally, we planted lettuce a while back and so far, it has done very little.  Too early?  Not true of the spicy mesclun greens which seem to have all sprouted and are almost ready to sample.  The mustards seem also to like it plenty cool.

Of the many sorrel seeds I planted, it appears that only one came up.  That said, I have plenty of wild sorrel if I want it.  But I was kind of hoping for the fancy French kind.  I guess more research is required.

Interestingly, the volunteer arugula is looking much better this year than it did last.  Much larger leafier rosette have come up apparently from the seeds of last year’s plants.  Very spicy and delicious — I’ll have to harvest it soon.

We’re ready to go on our mid May planting and just waiting for the latest cold snap to pass.  Over the weekend, we manured the bed where we plan to put cabbages and kale.  Later this week, we’ll plant it.  We bought our red cabbage starts from Walker’s and will plant kale from seed.  We’ll also put in more arugula to keep the other ones company (the seed package says mid Spring) and replant our sorry lettuces.  It’s not summer without buttercrunch!

We went out to the garden on March 28 to see how things were coming along.  To our surprise, all the snow was gone.  We found our bare little plot easily.  Good news — the lavender survived.  Not sure about the thyme or the sage though which looked quite dead.  They could still revive so we’ll give them time.  

The other good news was the chives which were up in large clumps that appear to already be food for something as they are nibbled.  I nibbled a piece myself and it was pungently tasty. Fun to be eating something from the garden again.

The cats will be happy too — we have a new clump of catnip coming up in a place I wasn’t expecting.

- Chris and Lise