This year as part of the prep work I wrote down what veggies I normally buy at the grocery store and used that as a guide for what to plant. Now that might sound like common sense, but I've been so anxious to try so many different plants in the past that I didn't give it as much thought as I should have.
So this year I'm going to plant the following vegetables:
Beans (Kentucky Wonder, Kentucky Blue, Purple Podded & Rattlesnake - all pole varieties)
Beets (Detroit dark red)
Broccoli (Calabrese which is a new variety for me for 2013 that I've not tried before)
Cabbage (Golden Acre & Ferry's Round Dutch)
Carrots (Danvers half long, Tender-sweet & Kaleidoscope mix)
Cucumbers (Sumter, Straight Eight, Poinsett 76 and National Pickling)
Kale (Dwarf blue curled Vate's Strain)
Lettuce (Oakleaf, Salad bowl red & green), Red sails, Cimmaron Cos, Iceberg, Black Seeded Simpson)
Onion (Red burgundy and Evergreen bunching)
Okra (Clemson Spineless)
Parsnips (Hollow Crown)
Peppers - Hot (Anaheim, Poblano and Jalapeño)
Peppers - Sweet (Giant Marconi and Keystone Resistant Giant)
Potatoes - Standard (German Butterball, Pontiac, and Purple Majesty)
Potatoes - Fingerlings (Red Thumb, French and Russian Banana Fingerling)
Radish (French breakfast, Lady slipper, and Early scarlet globe)
Spinach (Bloomsdale long standing)
Sugar snap peas (Progress 9, Mammoth Melting Sugar Pod and Dwarf Grey Sugar)
Summer Squash (Black Beauty green and Early Prolific Straighneck yellow)
Tomatoes (Sweetie Cherry, Thesaloniki, Striped Roman, Pink Brandywine and Cherokee Purple)
And the following herbs:
Basil
Catnip (squash bugs supposedly hate it)
Cilantro
Dill
Italian flat leaf parsley
Sage
My goal is to be able to can a lot of jars of green beans, tomatoes, salsa, cucumber pickles, pickled beets, pickled peppers and maybe some marinara sauce. I'll have to wait and see how things go.
I've already begun the garden bed prep work by trying out a new composting method. I've dug a couple trenches about one foot wide in two of the garden beds and filled them with partially composted leaf mold and a mix of straw and chicken poo from my hens coop.
Once filled, I covered the trench back with the soil. The concept behind this method is that it allows the worms and other bugs in the soil to work their magic on the compost contents. Then in the spring the contents are fairly well composted and provide the forthcoming vegetable plants with a fertile bed with decomposed organic matter to grow in. Not only is it an effective use of space but by burying the materials to be composted, it prevents any possible foul odors and prevents nosey animals (like my dogs) from trying to disturb the contents.
Other than picking out my seeds and beginning minor garden bed prep, I've also started my red burgundy onions and Broccoli. I have also began chitting my seed potatoes on the kitchen window sill. Chitting basically is a process of setting the seed potatoes in a cool sunny place that allows them to sprout. Chitting isn't necessary, but it helps speed up the plant growth after planting.
As done for the past two years, I'll follow the biodynamic calendar for starting seeds and planting the garden. The reason I do this is that each time I follow the biodynamic calendar my seedlings sprout within three days...four at the most. I've tried planting the same seeds within a few days of each other, one batch following the biodynamic calendar and one not. The biodynamic calendar ones all sprouted within 3 days. The others took 8 days. Same goes for the plants set in the garden. Those set out by the calendar do much better than those not. For those interested, here is the link for the calendar I follow. (There is also an iPhone app...Vital Almanac.) http://www.the-gardeners-calendar.co.uk/Moon_Planting.asp
Very soon I'll start my cabbage, lettuce, sugar snap peas and other seeds. I'll also do my winter pruning of the wine grapes and raspberries in late February. And finally I'll amend all the raised beds with Azomite rock dust, Iron, Sulphur, Gypsum, Calcium, and general compost.
Next month (in March) I'll plant most of the seedlings and spring will officially start for me!
