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January Garden
Looking back at old January blog posts, I see that the end of the month is when I start my usual garden prep and seed starting posts. Earlier in the week I received a media kit from Renee’s Garden so that I could select sample packets to try and then share with my readers. Other companies’ reminders are showing up in the inbox, which means I need to go ahead and put in requests for some gorgeous heirloom seed catalogs. Baker’s Creek is a personal favorite to thumb through. Thanks to seed saving through the years, there is less that I need to purchase each year. I actually have far…
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It’s time to plant onions in NC
Onions are one of my favorite crops to grow, which has historically been one of my least successful crops if you are comparing my expectations to reality. The secret to growing onions is planting them correctly. I plant them incorrectly. Each year I purchase a bag of onion sets, which look like tiny little onions. Each year I expect to get large onions, but instead get large green stalks and onions that are just barely larger than the sets. Not at all like this picture from Gurney’s. This spring, as I was perusing the seed section of Logan’s, I asked Karen (she’s like the garden goddess in the seed section),…
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Bolted, Pulled and Planted again!
Yesterday afternoon, Scooby and I were pulling weeds out of the gravel at the crawl space access, when I noticed there was a bed of baby arugula. I didn’t plant it there, but back in the spring when I relocated a bed to add the gravel, there was an arugula plant that had already gone to seed. It turns out that all those seeds were dropped in the gravel. It’s somewhat of a dream of mine to have a self-planting garden at least when it comes to annual herbs and lettuces. I always leave several heads of lettuce to bolt and flower so that I don’t have to purchase new…
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What is a "Last Frost Date" and why should you care?
When I started gardening, there was one phrase I starting noticing on every seed packet: last frost date. Another one I heard almost as often was: last killing frost. I wasn’t sure what exactly the difference was and who exactly determined that date. The Farmer’s Almanac defines frost in the following terms. Light freeze:29°F to 32°F—tender plants killed, with little destructive effect on other vegetation.Moderate freeze:25°F to 28°F—widely destructive effect on most vegetation, with heavy damage to fruit blossoms and tender and semi-hardy plants.Severe freeze:24°F and colder—damage to most plants. When gardeners use the term “last killing frost”, typically they mean a light freeze. When you first put your young…
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Did you forget to start seeds indoors?
If you live in the Southeast, no doubt you’ve been bit by the Spring bug. You can’t go to a grocery store without seeing displays of plants for sale. The Farmer’s Markets are starting to buzz again and seeing all the fresh produce might make you want to get your hands dirty. Yet, what’s that? You forgot to start your seedlings two months ago? That’s right. Some of us gardening crazies started planting our tomatoes and pepper 8 – 10 weeks ago. The good news is, since that last killing frost date is right around the corner (remember, it’s just a statistical date!) you can skip the whole window invasion…
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Lettuce Germination
Lettuce may be one of the easiest crops to grow so long as it isn’t planted too late in hot conditions that make it bolt. Several years ago I had a great crop of Romaine in a raised bed with ideal soil conditions. There was a rich blend of manure compost, peat moss, vermiculite and the existing soil. I started seeds in the early spring, watered regularly, and added tomato plants in to the bed in April which gave the lettuce shade by early summer. The crop lasted several weeks longer than it should have. There was another year when I switched to in-ground beds that I couldn’t get my…
