Grow Your Own – This Year’s Adventure Begins! Or Continues, At Least…
by John Weckerle
Earlier this week, we decided to pull the top off the “mini-greenhouse” on the south bed, take some inventory, prepare the bed for planting – and, well, plant. As we’ve mentioned previously, some of the salad greens and culinary herbs had made it through the winter. The thyme and sage never went dormant, and early Spring saw the emergence of a new crop of oregano. After tasting the salad greens – which had flowered and become bitter – we determined that we would be best off simply pulling them and planting some of the lettuce we started earlier in the season. As you can see, the herbs are looking fine and are ready for use.
To begin, I took some of this year’s compost and turned a few heaping (really heaping) trowels full into each square foot. While the soil left from last year is clearly loaded with organic matter and still very friable, I felt it important to bring in some more organics and some of the compost bacteria to kick-start the soil ecology in the bed. During the process, I found what appeared to be a bunch of sprouted piñon nuts in one of the “square feet,” indication that squirrels gained entrance last year (another indication of which was a certain amount of half-eaten eggplant in the bed last Fall).
Once this was accomplished, I planted lettuce, basil, chard, and cilantro plants from among those started earlier in the year. In some of the other squares, I planted seeds of spinach and string beans, leaving two squares for more basil and lettuce. The whole situation got a dose of Miracle Gro vegetable food to minimize planting shock for the previously-sprouted plants. At last check (yesterday morning), the plants looked healthy and happy but the seeds had not yet sprouted, although I suspect they will be coming up soon.
Thus far, the use of a corner-grommet strategy for holding the top “fly” on the mini-greenhouse seems to be working. I simply knocked in four nails near the corners of the bed frame, and used a quick-release tiedown knot to make for easy access.
2 Responses “Grow Your Own – This Year’s Adventure Begins! Or Continues, At Least…”
You should plant those germinated Pinon seeds…. that is cool!
Well, I have more pinons than I know what to do with at this point, even with the thinning project we did a few years back. I should have nabbed one and tried to do bonsai with it, though. Hindsight is 20/20, I suppose, but perhaps I’ll run across some more next year!