More prep work

written by Yvonne

Using last year's notes and the NC Agriculture Extension Service's Vegetable Gardener's Guide, I planned out a rough planting timeline for everything we want to grow in the 2012 TY Veggie Patch.  Tom determined the last frost date of the year to be April 2 so we'll use that as a guide when determining a safe date to put plants in the beds. In 2011 we learned some valuable things that we'll apply to this year, including:

1. Sow direct. If one of our reference books or the packet of seeds reads "sow direct", we will do so. We will not start those items in pots no matter how anxious we are to get them started. This seems to be the case for most of the root vegetables but a few other things as well.
2. Use tonics. We really slacked off using Jerry Baker's tonics last year.  We're going to be more diligent in applying them this year.  We sprayed on a few Green Up tonics but that was it. One I came across this weekend is a Soil Starter tonic. He says to use it two weeks prior to planting to get the soil ready to receive transplants and seeds.  I'm definitely applying that one this year.
3. Succession plant. We've read about it.  It makes sense. Sounds like a great idea.  Never actually done it.  For me, it has finally sunk in how to do it and why.  Let's say we decide that four butter crunch lettuce plants are sufficient for the season.  Instead of starting all four plants at the same time, we will start two plants now and two weeks later, start the other two.  This way instead of having all four plants come "online" at the same time, two will be ready and by the time we're done eating on that, the others will be up.  We're doing this with EVERYTHING we plant. By doing so, hopefully the bounty will be spaced out over a longer period of time and we won't be inundated with 116 cucumbers in a three week period. The part that will take some brain powers is making sure to leave enough space in each bed for the plants yet to come.

During the Super Bowl, I cut strips of newspaper and we set to making a bag full of pots to start our seeds this coming weekend.