Sunday, April 4, 2010

Delayed Update: Planting Day!

The gardeners are pleased to announce that we had our first official planting day on March 28!

On hand were:
*Seeds previously purchased from The Natural Gardening Company
*Two Eight Ball Zucchini and two Tumbling Tom tomato seedlings donated by Virginia
*Four seedlings donated by Friend-of-Savasana-Garden Karen Birbeck: dark green zucchini, white Pattypan squash, lemon cucumber, and Petit Gris French melon
*One leek plant
*One butterfly bush donated by Peggy

After much consideration, all were planted as follows:

Large Bed:
Sugar snap peas (seed)
Green (pole) beans (seed)
Zucchini (two seedlings - Jane took the second Eight Ball seedling to plant at home)
Cowpea (seed)
Lemon cucumber (seedling)
Pattypan squash (seedling)
Petit gris melon (seedling)

Seeds for climbing plants (snap peas, green beans, cowpea, and lemon cucumber) were planted close to the trellises. Still to be planted in this bed are tomatoes, Kirby cucumbers, bell peppers, and eggplant (perhaps one of the Fairytale eggplant seedlings currently growing in Virginia's bio dome).

Herb Bed:
Leek (plant)
Spinach (seed)
Butterfly bush (in the center of the bed, to attract pollinating insects and birds)
The "Salad Bowl": a mixture of butter, green leaf, and Romaine lettuce seed (Jane's idea - a good one, no?)
Chives (plant)
Garlic (bulbs - we still have several more bulbs, which must be planted somewhere else before they overtake Peggy's garden shed...)

This bed will also house hot peppers and a variety of other herbs, such as basil, dill, oregano, parsley, rosemary, sage, and thyme.

Root Vegetable Bed:
Bunching onions (seed)
Bok choy (seed)
Parsnip (seeds were planted after being soaked for 24 hours)
Carrot (seed)
Radish (seed)
















After the planting frenzy was over, we had to decide how to protect our seeds and tender seedlings from squirrels, rabbits, birds, and the sun. We considered chicken wire and we pondered poultry netting, but inspired by Jane's donation of a moveable, weighted patio door screen, we ultimately decided to purchase a big roll of 48-inch wide aluminum window screen. We used the screen to cover the root vegetable bed (we attached it with staples to the sides of the bed), the Salad Bowl (we used the patio door screen for this), and the trellises (we stapled blocks of wood to the screen to act as weights). We will relocate these screens as needed while the plants grow.

Finally, we attached lengths of hose to the water barrel overflow valves and directed these to the large bed and the root vegetable bed...then we wished the garden well and headed home.

Today's Newsflash! Peggy reports: "Good news!!  Plants already coming up: garlic, some lettuce, radishes and pac choi!!  Yeah!!"

1 comment:

  1. girls I love how the garden is coming along....glad to hear the seedlings are growing...!

    ReplyDelete