by Catherine Haug
Fran and I are both documenting our garden progress on our ESP website. For Fran’s posts see: Gardening at Senior Housing, and Gardening at Senior Housing – June 1, 2009 Update. For my earlier post, see A Beginner’s Garden.
Early Plantings
I’ve completed my first plantings, and most things are already growing or at least sprouted. Last fall I planted spinach and lettuce seeds, garlic cloves, and flowering allium in my main raised bed. All came up this spring, much to my delight!
I started corn, snow peas and cucumbers indoors this spring, and all survived to transplant last week. However, my corn had a hard time because of my cat, Charlie. One day he was being awfully quiet, but I knew he wasn’t sleeping, so I was curious. I found him, standing amidst my corn starts, chomping off the leaves where they broke from the stems. I guess he thought it was grass. Only one survived, and I had to start more, and keep the door to that room locked (he knows how to open a latched but unlocked door).
Planting by the Moon
I wanted to try planting by lunar cycles as my Dad had done, and found Gardening by the Moon website that recommends:
- New moon, waxing (1st quarter) is best time to plant above-ground annual crops that produce seeds outside the fruit (lettuce, broccoli, cabbage, spinach and grains). Also cucs, which are an exception (if start from seed).
- 2nd quarter moon, waxing, is best for above ground annuals that produce seeds inside the fruit (beans, peas, squash, peppers and tomatoes).
- Full moon, waning (3rd quarter), is best time to plant root crops (beets, carrots, onions, potatoes).
- 4th quarter moon, waning, is a time of rest and good for harvesting, pruning, and transplanting
Thus my planting schedule was as follows:
May 9 – May 17 (3rd quarter): sowed root veggies. I did half rows of beets and carrots, with radish mixed in; I’ll sow the other half row in a few weeks. I also sowed a partial row of turnips, and will stagger the remaining row over several weeks. And I started my red and yellow-finn potatoes in my Smart Pots, 5 each in a single pot.- May 17 – May 23 (4th quarter): transplanted corn, snow pea and cucumber starts. Unfortunately, the cucumber didn’t survive the transplant, so will sow new seeds with other curcubits (see below)
- May 24 – May 30 (1st quarter): sowed greens and corn. I did another half-row each of spinach and mixed lettuce, and half rows of romaine and red leaf lettuce. Sowed full rows of kale, cabbage and broccoli-raab, and a short row of mustard at the curved end of the bed.
May 31 – June 6 (2nd quarter): added white pole beans and buttercup squash seeds to the corn start in one of my 3-Sisters Smart Pots; shell peas and zucchini to the other 3-Sisters Smart Pot; and sowed a couple cucumber seeds to complete the other set of 3-Sisters in the main bed (snow peas and corn). And sewed a half-row of bush beans; will continue to sow these in half-rows until mid summer.
Now I wait to see if everything comes up. The broccoli raab is up as tiny-tiny sprouts; the turnip sprouts are growing. The red potatoes came up first, followed by the yellow fins a week later.
Enjoying the Harvest
I’ve been eating spinach and baby lettuce in my salads every evening, and tonight I’ll make Lebanese Spinach Pies (with feta and pine nuts in a yogurt pie crust) to go with my Copper River salmon. This really is way cool!!