Gardening and State of the Barbarienne
Start with State of the Barbarienne:
Not so great. Loose joint syndrome means joints periodically go a-wiggle, and of late this has been the joints in my spine. PT is mostly helping? But the "two steps forward, three steps back" pattern of late is quite annoying. Dammit, spine, just settle down, will you?
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Spring is upon us, and that means GARDENING!
I am soooo behind on prepping the garden and setting seeds. I need to put the grow light together and set up seedling trays. I was going to do this indoors, but might set it up on the porch and hope we don't get a bad freeze. I'm so leery of these things.
Worse question is WHAT DO I PLANT THIS YEAR. I have so many seeds. I have expanded the growing space (again!) with more patio pavers, this time setting up a patch in the middle of the yard where the sun is quite strong for 12 hours a day. Probably I'll put the tomatoes in there. (One of these years I'll win the lottery and get an actual patio built...)
• Tomatoes, obvs. Last year I was very happy with the Romas and the pink Brandywines. I missed the Super Sweets and the Black Cherry, so I might go for those this year. They take up a ton of space, but I think I can rig a decent trellis based on last year's watermelon trellis.
• Watermelon! I was so excited by it last year, I have to do it again. On a trellis to keep the bunnies and slugs off them. May use the watermelons as the test case of in-ground vs Earthbox this year.
• Cucumbers, if I can get some proper English cuke seeds. I was fine with the burpless whatevers last year, but I like the longer, skinny ones better. Will need to do a better trellis rig this year--last year was a bit of a mess.
• Strawberries. One of the plants last year put out a million runners and now I have five or six plants ready to be put into a proper strawberry tower. These were pretty sweet, so I'll be happy to have them. Generally I hate strawberries, but if I have a super-sweet variety, then I'll be good.
• Lettuce and greens. These are direct sow, so all I need to do is clean up the pot where I grew them last year, put in a bit of fertilizer, and plant. It's a bit early, but I don't care if they die in a late frost; I can replant. I'm not a farmer. Also, I have seeds for Japanese greens from my bff's mom. No idea what the package says, but I figure put the seeds in the dirt and see what happens.
• Corn. Same philosophy on planting the corn early. This year the corn is going into the Earthboxes, because the fucking rabbits stole it all last year.
• Peas should be done same as corn and lettuce. Direct sow, don't worry about being a bit early.
• Usual herbs, of course. I can't start Parsley seed to save my life, so I'll get plants from the nursery.
• Will probably have another go at frisée this year. Didn't do much last year, but if I get the grow light up and running, I can do seedlings in cowpots.
• Peppers. I still like sweet red peppers, so I'll do a couple of those.
• Carrots, if I get my butt in gear and order the seeds. I have seeds from last year, but there were ones I liked better than others, so I'll order more of those.
And the new crop this year will be...POTATOES. My ancestors would be so proud. I'm going to do them in a cardboard box to keep the mounding okay.
I planted garlic last fall, so now waiting to see if it puts up shoots and announces they have turned into proper heads. I'm getting bupkis out of my bulbs right now, but that might be because this is the first warm day. I also may need to top-dress the garden beds with slightly alkaline additives, because bulbs don't dig on the acid and my soil is kind of acidy.
IT'S SPRING! HOORAY!