March 30th, 2013 - The big spring planting!

It was a busy weekend. With the beds prepared the previous week, it was finally time to get stuff in the ground. I did mostly prep work on Friday while the seedlings were being hardened one last day, and then on Saturday, I did most of the planting.

In bed one, I transplanted 9 broccoli seedlings (5 de cicco and 4 calabrese), in 3 rows of 3. In between the rows, I sowed a mix of red and golden beets from Craig. I also sowed 4 rows of carrots. One row of each type (red, purple, baby, large), but I left space for another succession row for each of them. All the way in the back of the row, I transplanted the leeks, using the dibble method. This involves poking a hole in the ground about 6 inches deep with a dibble, which I think is the width of a broomstick. I just used a scrap piece of wood. Then I dropped a tiny leek in each hole, added a few crumbs of dirt, and then filled each hole with water. It will be pretty cool if it actually works. I guess the hope is that the roots take hold like normal in the bottom of the hole, and as the leeks gets bigger, it will grow into the hole, even pushing the hole wider over time.

In bed two, I set out two long rows of onion sets. One third of each row is spaced at 2", so that I can pull every other onion for green onions. The other two thirds of each row is spaced at 4" for optimum size. The directions said to plant it 1 inch deep and not more, so that it can bulb nicely. It did say to fertilize with a 10-20-10 fertilizer at planting, but I have not done that yet. I bought this 0-4-4 stuff that I might try for all of the root veggies. In between the onion rows, I transplanted the kale and the lettuce. 3 days later, the kale is doing fine, but the valentine leaf lettuce is hurting, and is almost entirely gone. I also planted a half row of baby boc choy.

In half of bed four, I planted the bigger boc choy about 10 inches apart in all directions, according to the packet. In the other half, I’m going to plant some blue lake bush beans within the next week

Lastly, in the front of the house, I planted two types of lettuce mixes from Craig. I have no idea if it will work, but it is worth a try. It gets some good morning sun, but then tons of afternoon shade, so I might have to break out the sluggo!