It's Spring Sir!
Don’t forget to water the flowers, Major.
The grocery stores and garden centers are no offering seeds for your veggie garden. Fresh veggies for your meals are the best. A lot of work, but it’s worth it.
My siblings and I would go over the seed catalogs, making suggestions to mom as to what to plant. We had as much fun with the seed catalogs as we did with the Christmas toy catalogs.
Since Spring begins in March, although it doesn’t feel like Spring, it’s time to plant seeds indoors (or it is past time for some veggies, (like tomatoes, those were started in February (according to my mom they were placed in a sunny area above the kitchen sink), for your garden. Here are some tips for growing some early veggies from seeds in time to transplant to your outdoor garden, PVC pipe gardens, or outdoor pots. Or you can grow herbs and spices indoors.
Apartment gardening
Early veggies
Stacked PVC garden
In the past, I would have a salsa garden. I would plant tomatoes, cilantro, jalapenos, and onions. I don’t any more because of the black walnut tree (it kills everything) and the deer loved to nosh on the young sprouts. I can’t imagine what they thought when they had a mouthful of jalapenos. Instead, I go to the Des Moines Farmers Market for fresh produce when they are in season. Farmer's Market That begins on the first Saturday in May, running to the last Saturday in October. My sister, who lives in the Denver Colorado area, she says its bigger than the Denver farmers’ market and offers far more local produce. But be aware of the hydroponic veggies early in the growing season. To me, they taste like water. No flavor.
Back to the subject of veggies. When I could put in veggies, I would purchase heirloom tomato seedlings from the Des Moines Master Gardener Sale. My favorite would be the Brandywine tomato. They would have all sorts of veggie seedlings and ornamental plants ready to be put in the ground.
My mom had a trick when planting tomato seedlings. She would strip 2/3rds of the leaves off of the seedling. Dig a trench in the garden. Gently lay the stripped part into the trench, cover it with soil Give it a good drink of fertilized water (plant food mixed in rain water. (She had a garbage can under a rain spout to collect the rain water). Shove in a 6-foot 1”x1” stake and tie the seedling with strips of ruined panty hose. Then a 6-foot cage made from reinforced concrete wire would be place around each tomato seedling. Every day, water the seedlings with fertilized water, until it took root. Then lay off the watering. Except, at times during long periods of no rain.
We always had about a half a dozen tomato “trees”, several currant bushes, strawberry plants, an area for sweet corn, apple and cherry trees, and the all important grape vine. Mom loved making grape jelly. She tried to make wine out the grapes one year. It was the nastiness stuff I ever tasted.
In the last house my mom lived in, we would drape the fruit trees with mesh to keep the birds out, and had a garden surrounded with fence posts and wrapped with two to three foot pieces of chicken wire at the bottom. It prevented the rabbits from noshing in the garden. Especially, the strawberries.
It didn’t prevent the visits by the raccoons, possums, squirrels, and the neighbor’s kids.
Here’s a picture of my mom and one of the tomato “trees”. The “tree” is over flowing the 6-foot cage and produced 1-2 lb. tomatoes.
So, what’s going in your garden this year?