Today was my wife's birthday, and when I got home from Vegas, she asked if I was planning on gardening all weekend. I got the hint so today was all about her. Smoothies in the morning, a bath for her and nap later, watching the kids and taking her out to dinner.
I did get out for five minutes to see that nothing has sprouted yet. The spinach seedlings are about half-mast on the loops spreading, but they are kinda looking scraggly so I'm not sure they're loving their new home. Maybe it's too much water. Not sure. Time will tell.
I'm kind of surprised that the radishes aren't up yet. If they really do go from seed to table in 25 days, we're over a fourth of the way down and nothing. Odd. I guess I'm just impatient.
Next weekend will be the next planting of my cool weather crops to succession plant (hopefully I'll see some progress on the first plantings), as well as hopefully my potatoes if Territorial ever gets around to shipping my order. Maybe I'll be a pest and call tomorrow.
After seeing a post from Flatlander on Ft2Garden.com about a garlic farmer in Wisconsin, and hearing a bit about his garlic garden, it made me think. I love garlic, and my wife likes it too. We normally just use powder or pre-minced in our cooking, but I'd love to use cloves if I had them around. My brother's growing 100 bulbs or so in one of his two 4x8 beds. I hope to get a few bulbs from him when he harvests in June.
The problem I see with garlic is you plant it in Fall and don't harvest it until the next summer. Much as I'd love to use my corn bed to plant garlic as a winter crop, I don't want to give up a whole bed for half the prime growing season. I know my brother's worried about it because he's got two 4x8 beds and a 4x4 bed, and that's it. His other bed currently is growing a cover crop of various grasses and beans that will get tilled under and compost to replace the nutrients after a decade of planting.
When I was commenting on the garlic post, it got me thinking. The former owners of our house had used the "back 40" to grow potatoes in the area in front of the blackberry bramble. If I get out there this fall to hack down a third of the bramble (still need to chat with my neighbor), I just may clean up that area and maybe do some raised beds without the boards and plant garlic. The nice thing about garlic is that you plant it in fall and don't worry about it until spring. I don't go back there much, so it would be perfect. Just a thought for the future.
Have a good week, and let's hope my garden starts growing!
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