Saturday, April 15, 2006
Spring Planting
Spring Plantings 4/15/06
Whoopee! A delightful spring shower! Just what the garden needed. I was actually telling myself that if it didn't happen, I might get out my hose, which I have never used before until mid-July. Probably half the 28 seasons that I have gardened, I have not watered with a hose at all. In none of the other seasons have I used it more than 3 times. Incidentally, if you ever do hose your garden, be sure to do a thorough job so that the roots don't think the surface is a good place to grow. Water for at least an hour straight on or 3 hours if your spray is rotating.
This is now planting weather. Use your watering can in each hole before you plant and then to water down the newly planted plant. Its roots can't get any food from the air, so it's important to fill the air pockets around the roots with good tasty soil (from a root's point of view).
Now is a good time to plant out broccoli, cabbage (which I don't do because it takes too much space per plant), celery, parsley, pak choi, and kohlrabi, among others. If you don't have them around the house, you can buy seedlings. My favorite place is Bartlett's, which is on Grove Street north of Montclair before you get to Rt. 3, on your left. Fourteen members of the same family in four generations support themselves on 3.5 acres of land. Their greenhouses go back, back, back. If you get a family member, they know lots. Their hired help at the desk may not be as helpful.
Plocks is another family-based business with a huge outlet on Broad Street just north of where it intersects the G.S. Parkway. I'm not sure whether it is in Clifton or Bloomfield. They have everything.
There is another place on Center Street Nutley, not far east of the Parkway on your left. Yesterday, the health food store on Church St. Montclair was selling parsley and tomato plants. It's perfect timing for parsley, but allegedly a month early for tomatoes. My guess is that it would be safe to put them out now (we haven't had frost after this for several years), but I'm taking the Wall of Waters off my broccoli plants and putting them over tomatoes. They are full of water, which is a nuisance, and I might as well use them.
Incidentally, my broccoli that I planted under floating cover on March 11 is doing fine, but it isn't as big as the plants protected by WoWs. The latter were bigger all along, so this isn't definitive. My peas planted March 11 are a couple of inches high, and some of the Sugar Snaps planted later are peeking through.
It's always a good time for sowing lettuce seeds, but this may be better than most. You could also sow kohlrabi, chard, pak choi outside. It's a good time to sow carrot and parsnip seeds, but I don't recommend that for beginners. Root crops need a fine, friendly soil, which Montclair's clay surely is not. I suggest digging compost into your soil for three years before attempting root crops.
I also interplant corn and bean seeds under floating cover in mid-April. The early corn will then be available in July. Somehow the raccoons eat all the corn that comes ripe in August, but aren't corn-hungry in July. Okay. For years I've humored them by planting only early corn, eating it in July, and going to a math conference in August. The traditional "three sisters" are corn, beans, and squash, which grow well together and provide the basics for a vegetarian (native American, among others) diet. I don't put out squash until mid-May because it really does want only warm weather. Or so I think. Hmmm... I haven't tried yet to defy THAT conventional wisdom.
It's a good time for double digging if you haven't had that pleasure yet. John Jeavons told me that after your soil is good, it is better not to disturb it. However, after last year's troubles (nobody around here I know had a good garden last year), I've been raking in some compost and lime on the top. If you had wood fires this winter, their ashes are great as a cheap replacement for lime to raise the PH. We're at the end of the acid rain trip of the continent, and our Eastern soil tends to get too acid. So lime, wood ashes, or calcium pills (yes! a pharmacist friend gave me calcium pills like the ones he uses to raise the PH in his garden) are advisable.
If you need to know how far apart to place plants, consult John Jeavon's book HOW TO RAISE MORE VEGETABLES THAN YOU EVER THOUGHT POSSIBLE ON LESS LAND THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE. I just scatter seeds and later thin to an appropriate spacing.
Happy digging, planting and sowing!
Pat
Whoopee! A delightful spring shower! Just what the garden needed. I was actually telling myself that if it didn't happen, I might get out my hose, which I have never used before until mid-July. Probably half the 28 seasons that I have gardened, I have not watered with a hose at all. In none of the other seasons have I used it more than 3 times. Incidentally, if you ever do hose your garden, be sure to do a thorough job so that the roots don't think the surface is a good place to grow. Water for at least an hour straight on or 3 hours if your spray is rotating.
This is now planting weather. Use your watering can in each hole before you plant and then to water down the newly planted plant. Its roots can't get any food from the air, so it's important to fill the air pockets around the roots with good tasty soil (from a root's point of view).
Now is a good time to plant out broccoli, cabbage (which I don't do because it takes too much space per plant), celery, parsley, pak choi, and kohlrabi, among others. If you don't have them around the house, you can buy seedlings. My favorite place is Bartlett's, which is on Grove Street north of Montclair before you get to Rt. 3, on your left. Fourteen members of the same family in four generations support themselves on 3.5 acres of land. Their greenhouses go back, back, back. If you get a family member, they know lots. Their hired help at the desk may not be as helpful.
Plocks is another family-based business with a huge outlet on Broad Street just north of where it intersects the G.S. Parkway. I'm not sure whether it is in Clifton or Bloomfield. They have everything.
There is another place on Center Street Nutley, not far east of the Parkway on your left. Yesterday, the health food store on Church St. Montclair was selling parsley and tomato plants. It's perfect timing for parsley, but allegedly a month early for tomatoes. My guess is that it would be safe to put them out now (we haven't had frost after this for several years), but I'm taking the Wall of Waters off my broccoli plants and putting them over tomatoes. They are full of water, which is a nuisance, and I might as well use them.
Incidentally, my broccoli that I planted under floating cover on March 11 is doing fine, but it isn't as big as the plants protected by WoWs. The latter were bigger all along, so this isn't definitive. My peas planted March 11 are a couple of inches high, and some of the Sugar Snaps planted later are peeking through.
It's always a good time for sowing lettuce seeds, but this may be better than most. You could also sow kohlrabi, chard, pak choi outside. It's a good time to sow carrot and parsnip seeds, but I don't recommend that for beginners. Root crops need a fine, friendly soil, which Montclair's clay surely is not. I suggest digging compost into your soil for three years before attempting root crops.
I also interplant corn and bean seeds under floating cover in mid-April. The early corn will then be available in July. Somehow the raccoons eat all the corn that comes ripe in August, but aren't corn-hungry in July. Okay. For years I've humored them by planting only early corn, eating it in July, and going to a math conference in August. The traditional "three sisters" are corn, beans, and squash, which grow well together and provide the basics for a vegetarian (native American, among others) diet. I don't put out squash until mid-May because it really does want only warm weather. Or so I think. Hmmm... I haven't tried yet to defy THAT conventional wisdom.
It's a good time for double digging if you haven't had that pleasure yet. John Jeavons told me that after your soil is good, it is better not to disturb it. However, after last year's troubles (nobody around here I know had a good garden last year), I've been raking in some compost and lime on the top. If you had wood fires this winter, their ashes are great as a cheap replacement for lime to raise the PH. We're at the end of the acid rain trip of the continent, and our Eastern soil tends to get too acid. So lime, wood ashes, or calcium pills (yes! a pharmacist friend gave me calcium pills like the ones he uses to raise the PH in his garden) are advisable.
If you need to know how far apart to place plants, consult John Jeavon's book HOW TO RAISE MORE VEGETABLES THAN YOU EVER THOUGHT POSSIBLE ON LESS LAND THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE. I just scatter seeds and later thin to an appropriate spacing.
Happy digging, planting and sowing!
Pat
Labels: Spring Planting
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