Late update: more planting

This is one of those updates that never actually happened. I had all intentions of adding these planting dates, but never actually did. Luckily I did add the dates to my journal so I really know when I planted these!

Red cabbage: 5/12

Beans - Scarlet Runner and Cannellini: 5/20

Cucumbers: 5/18
Super Zagross Middle Eastern Cukes: 5/19 (seeds)

Eggplant - Calliope, Ghostbuster, Little Fingers, Twinkle: 5/18

Kale - Lacinato/Nero Toscana: 5/12

Red Leaf Lettuce: 5/12

Green Peppers: 5/15, 5/18

Popcorn - Dutch Butter: 5/12, 5/19

Spinach: 5/12

Tomatoes - Plum, Jet Star, Early Girl, Black Krim, Costoluta Genovese, Green Zebra,
Mr. Stripey, Box Car Willie, Sungold, Yellow Brandywine, Juliet: 5/17

Zucchini - Cocozelle, Costata Romanesca, Black Beauty, Tondo Chiaro di Toscana: 5/19

Flowers - Nasturtium, Torch Sunflower, Marigolds, Zinnia, Cosmos: 5/17

Herbs - Basil, Oregano, Thyme: 5/17

The garden has really taken off with the recent rain and plenty of sun that we've had. Unfortunately, we have yet to put up any stakes for tomatoes, or trellises for the peas and beans. I think we are looking to build this kind of set up for the tomatoes: Stake-and-weave trellis system. We have corn growing behind our peas in hopes to use the corn as a trellis, but the peas are growing much faster than the corn right now, so I am unsure about that system actually working. I was hoping to build teepees for the beans, as I planted them in little squares in the rows in order to do that eventually.

The lettuce is growing nicely, and providing us with more than enough for salads everynight. The arugula has begun to bolt and go to seed, so it is much to spicy for eating now. I will have to try and plant more, as well as new lettuce before we finish harvesting the heads we have now. In any case, the lettuce is far more successful than in our smaller garden last year, where it bolted before we harvested any for eating.

Early season gardening

So far we have done a decent job getting an early start to the garden this year. We got a huge delivery of "super soil" (a soil/compost blend) to the garden the last week in March. The boys were really excited about that. What could be better on a Saturday morning than watching a dump truck drive through your yard to dump some dirt piles? Oh yeah, playing in those dirt piles that afternoon...


The dirt has been shoveled around the garden to make two large beds with one long path for flowers down the center. Hopefully the added depth will give us a little help with the horrible rock and clay conditions found here in New Hampshire. With the dirt in we were able to start on our spring seeds: Wando Shelling Peas (3/30 and 4/9), Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce (3/30), Salad Bowl Mix (3/30 and 4/9) and Arugula (4/7).

Though the morning started out cloudy and rainy we lucked out and enjoyed a sunny afternoon at a maple sugar house in Lyndeborough. Maple weekend is always a fun little activity celebrating the beginning of spring around here. Last year we checked out Ben's Sugar Shack, but this year we headed to the Maple Guys Sugar Shack, which was a bit closer to us, and I kind of liked their syrup better. It had a nice smoky flavor to it that I never noticed in other syrups before. Both places offer mail order syrup, so check either out if you are in need of some real syrup!