Monday, February 20, 2012

Garden Dreaming

Any of you in the midwest know as well as we do that this has been a weird winter, if you can even call it winter. Chris and I took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather and did yard work over the weekend, and it got me into my usual springtime garden fever. I'm ready to plant.

So I spent an afternoon preparing my planting list, and mapping out my beds, with much help from Burpee seeds and the Farmer's Almanac. Planting will officially begin in the Jones home on March 1 when lettuce seeds go down outside.

But before I get into my plans, here are some ghosts of garden past to help you get as excited as I am about this:

Grape and roma tomatoes

Peppers!

Mammoth sunflower before

And after. See the boxelder bug enjoying the view?

First year in our garden. I overplanted a little.

And the ever-growing rosemary.

This year's planting will look like this:

Bed 1: Strawberries. (as always)

Bed 2: Tomatoes, grape tomatoes, bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, onions. Basically it's a salsa garden.

Bed 3: Lettuce, spinach and potatoes. The potatoes are new, but I hear they're easy to grow and extra delicious when fresh. I might try out a unique variety, like purple potatoes.

Bed 4: Beans, beats and carrots. Basically beets and friends, because wow do I love beets. I've even convinced Chris that they're worth eating. And I might throw in a few ears of corn, even though Chris told me I wasn't allowed. Just think, trying to keep this Iowa native from growing a few ears of sweet corn . . . . don't tell him.

In addition, we'll have a planter of mint, one of basil, one of rosemary (our rosemary plants from last year have actually survived the winter, so this one is good to go!), one of peas (this is new - I found a compact variety of pea plant that's perfect for small spaces) and one of parsley, oregano and sage. Each garden bed will hold marigolds to keep the critters away, and I'll have a few varieties of sunflowers - including the huge ones, of course - along the flower beds outside the garden retaining wall.

So that's it, we're on official countdown to seed day - only 10 days! I can't wait.




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