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jaunthieI just went to the nursery for two things.
I returned home with these two things...and a whole lot more. So it goes sometimes. But there were such good deals on various kinds of flowering bulbs, and I've got that whole sidewalk strip that could really use spring color, and...
Well, planting all those flowering bulbs will have to wait for another day (and let's hope we get some decent weather for it before spring). Today's task was clearing out the middle vegetable bed (along with some of the spent sunflowers from the inner front yard border), turning it over entirely, spreading on some compost, and planting garlic. Um. And some yellow onions; they had starter onions at the nursery for very cheap, and maybe my luck with yellow storage onions will be better if I plant them in the fall. I figured it was worth the $3 investment/gamble. We'll see.
I also wound up transplanting some of the swiss chard that was growing in that bed back into the bed as row markers, along with mustard greens, cabbage, kale, and broccoli that I wound up buying starts of at the nursery. Just for row markers, mind you. And why not have your row markers be something edible, instead of metal or plastic spikes? But no, I wasn't planning on buying those; they just happened to have them on sale.
I did mention that I oughtn't to be allowed to go to plant nurseries unsupervised, right?
But most of what I planted today was indeed garlic. Nine cloves of elephant garlic, along with four different kinds of softneck: Chesnok Red, Inchelium Red, Metechi (marbled purple-stripe), and Silver Rose. Plus a row of mystery garlic, aka cloves and bulblets I found while turning over the bed, already rooted and (in one case) sending up shoots, ready to grow. That's one of the joys of garlic; plant it once, and no matter how careful you are in harvesting it, chances are excellent that you'll miss some, and you'll wind up with volunteers next year.
Come to think of it, that's true of most of what I grow. The secret to being a successful vegetable gardener who is also a very busy technogeek with a more-than-full-time job is to plant things that take care of themselves and are inclined to mulitiply/come back without any prodding on your part. But that's another post.
Anyway, the garlic is planted, along with the onions, the living row-markers, and the mystery volunteers. And a container's worth of bull's-blood beets, just because I couldn't resist and the red leaves are great winter interest. I also have a grocery-bag's worth of mixed greens I harvested from the bed before turning it over, a good mix of chard, kale, and mustard. Those will go into the soup that I'm making tonight, along with the leeks I pulled from the backyard veggie bed (and the potatoes and garlic and onions from earlier harvest).
I have plenty of starter onions left, as well as spare Chesnok, Inchelium, and Silver Rose cloves. If anyone's interested in some, just let me know.
And I am very tired now. I think I will rest a bit before starting to cook.
I returned home with these two things...and a whole lot more. So it goes sometimes. But there were such good deals on various kinds of flowering bulbs, and I've got that whole sidewalk strip that could really use spring color, and...
Well, planting all those flowering bulbs will have to wait for another day (and let's hope we get some decent weather for it before spring). Today's task was clearing out the middle vegetable bed (along with some of the spent sunflowers from the inner front yard border), turning it over entirely, spreading on some compost, and planting garlic. Um. And some yellow onions; they had starter onions at the nursery for very cheap, and maybe my luck with yellow storage onions will be better if I plant them in the fall. I figured it was worth the $3 investment/gamble. We'll see.
I also wound up transplanting some of the swiss chard that was growing in that bed back into the bed as row markers, along with mustard greens, cabbage, kale, and broccoli that I wound up buying starts of at the nursery. Just for row markers, mind you. And why not have your row markers be something edible, instead of metal or plastic spikes? But no, I wasn't planning on buying those; they just happened to have them on sale.
I did mention that I oughtn't to be allowed to go to plant nurseries unsupervised, right?
But most of what I planted today was indeed garlic. Nine cloves of elephant garlic, along with four different kinds of softneck: Chesnok Red, Inchelium Red, Metechi (marbled purple-stripe), and Silver Rose. Plus a row of mystery garlic, aka cloves and bulblets I found while turning over the bed, already rooted and (in one case) sending up shoots, ready to grow. That's one of the joys of garlic; plant it once, and no matter how careful you are in harvesting it, chances are excellent that you'll miss some, and you'll wind up with volunteers next year.
Come to think of it, that's true of most of what I grow. The secret to being a successful vegetable gardener who is also a very busy technogeek with a more-than-full-time job is to plant things that take care of themselves and are inclined to mulitiply/come back without any prodding on your part. But that's another post.
Anyway, the garlic is planted, along with the onions, the living row-markers, and the mystery volunteers. And a container's worth of bull's-blood beets, just because I couldn't resist and the red leaves are great winter interest. I also have a grocery-bag's worth of mixed greens I harvested from the bed before turning it over, a good mix of chard, kale, and mustard. Those will go into the soup that I'm making tonight, along with the leeks I pulled from the backyard veggie bed (and the potatoes and garlic and onions from earlier harvest).
I have plenty of starter onions left, as well as spare Chesnok, Inchelium, and Silver Rose cloves. If anyone's interested in some, just let me know.
And I am very tired now. I think I will rest a bit before starting to cook.
