Gardening

Winter is the perfect time to plan out your spring garden. You can do this by either getting out a piece of paper and some colored pencils or markers and drawing out your space and what to plant where, or just make a list of what you want to plant. Another way is to try to anticipate what type of season you are going to have, which isn’t always accurate, and plant accordingly.

For instance, during warmer than usual springs and summers, tomatoes do extremely well and will give you a bountiful harvest close to fall. However, during colder than normal spring and summer temperatures, tomatoes don’t do so well. What to plant instead? Peas! Peas like colder, but not freezing temperatures, and are usually a first and last crop, where tomatoes are a middle crop. That basically means that you plant peas in the late winter and late summer, and tomatoes in the middle of spring. These two crops are also perfect for rotation, which means planting tomatoes in one plot and peas in another then rotating them the following year. Peas help replenish the soil from what the tomatoes take out, leaving you with healthier, more disease resistant plants, and better soil to keep planting in.

Companion crops are another important aspect to think about. The most obvious would be what the Native Americans practice, with corn, beans and squash. The corn provides a stalk for the beans to climb up, the beans provide nutrients to both the corn and the squash, and the squash leaves provide shade for the soil and lower sections of the plants, keeping moisture from evaporating and overheating the plants.

Container gardening is perfect for small patio spaces and apartment dwellers, and also for herbs which tend to spread out of control if left in a regular garden plot. We have all of our herbs in containers for a couple reasons, but mostly so that when the temperatures get below freezing, they can be moved to a safe location. Most herbs are perennials, meaning they come back every year, while others are evergreen, meaning they do not go dormant during the winter, and still others are annuals which have to be replanted every year. The only exception in our yard is that we have our lavender and rosemary in the rock garden and not in pots, because both of those double as shrubs. I’m hoping to add a bay laurel bush sometime this year too, as I use a lot of bay leaves in cooking.

Other things to consider while planning out your garden is timing, such as when each plant will be ready to harvest. Some crops are ready to harvest in only a few short weeks, while others may take up to two years. Then there are crops like greens that you can simply cut off the top or pick off the outer leaves for a salad and continue harvesting as long as they keep growing back. Find out which varieties do best when planted directly into the soil and which should be started indoors first, because some indoor starts can take up to eight weeks before they are ready to be planted outside, in which case, you will probably want to start some of those now so they will be ready to put into the ground in April.

Also, one last thing is prepping your garden space. Whether you use fertilizer, compost or a combination, you’ll want to make sure the plot you plan to plant your crop in is full of nutrients for those fruits and vegetables to soak up. I prefer compost because we already have it from keeping chickens and throwing our all of our vegetable scraps, egg shells and coffee grinds into a compost bin. However, some plants do well with the addition of a little Epsom salt, which if you have roses, you probably already use. This can either be done right before you plant, or a couple weeks ahead to allow all of those nutrients to fully integrate into the soil.

I hope you have fun planting this year’s garden! Remember to keep it simple, and to keep the cost down, only plant what you will actually eat. It doesn’t make sense to plant cucumbers if nobody will eat them. But if you really like tomatoes, plant an extra or two for late summer canning when your garden will be overflowing with them! And don’t let any of your bounty go to waste. If you can’t eat it all, and you aren’t going to can it, give some to neighbors, friends, family or a local shelter. I guarantee they will appreciate the fresh produce… unless, of course, it is all that late summer zucchini that you have to leave on peoples doorsteps and run like hell to make sure they don’t know it was you who left it!