Anyway, this winter in Arkansas has been super mild. We have had tons of 60's, 70's and even 80 degree days already and its only the beginning of March. This beautiful weather has gotten me super excited about my garden. The weather has been so beautiful and shows no signs of changing that I am going to throw caution to the wind and begin planting early. We live in Zone 7 and traditionally the last frost is sometime between March 30th and April 30th. However, last year I planted my summer vegetable garden March 21st and it did pretty well, so I am hoping I have the same luck. Otherwise if we get a cold snap I'll be running around my backyard like a maniac trying to cover all my plants.
Last year was my first year gardening at our new house so my motto was "lets just see what happens" and for the record heat we had it did great so I'm more confident and want to be more adventurous this year. Last year squash bugs destroyed my many squash and zucchini plants so this year I am not planting any. Instead I want to plant a lot more fruit and interesting vegetables that more closely align with what we like and actually eat.This year I am also blogging about it so I can keep better track of timelines and see what worked and what didn't.
So over the past weekend (March 10th) John and I collected leaves and got the soil ready for my spring plants. The following is the list of our spring plants that should be planted around early spring:
Blueberries
Raspberries
Strawberries
Fig trees
Brussel Sprouts
Lettuce
Arugula
Rainbow Chard
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Peas
Lilac bush
I have to give a shout out to our friends Liz and Ryan who run a local garden called the Bussey-Scott Garden and so generously gave me some of their seedlings!
First I planted two blueberry bushes. Blueberries need a mate to fruit so you should always have at least two plants and space them close enough so they can pollinate. They also like acidic soil so I added a ton of peat moss. I went ahead a bought some pretty well established plants because I'm impatient and want to have blueberries this summer. I think most do not fruit the first year. Here is a picture of the two plants.
Second I planted the raspberry bush. Raspberries are supposed to be pretty easy to grow, since they grow wildly and can grow in partial shade, which my back yard is full of. We had a small weed tree up against our back fence in the garden so I tore it out and planted the bush there.
Its small now but I'm hoping it gets really big and bushy soon and becomes full of tasty berries.
Third I planted two strawberry plants. Strawberries grow really well in raised beds and in soils that drain well and also like full sun. One side of our house gets full sun so I decided to plant these bad boys there. I also added tons of manure and peat moss to the soil to kinds of raise it up a lot so its like it is in a raised bed.
Fourth we planted our fig tree. I had a fig tree at our old house and transplanted it to our new one. However last year it did not fruit and this year it looked dead, so I went ahead and bought a new bigger tree. But when I went to pull up the old fig tree and plant the new one there the old fig tree showed some signs of life so I left it there. There was another weed tree by the fence in the back so John pulled that up and planted the new fig tree there. I love figs and hope both trees do well this summer.
Next we planted the the greens. There is a 8 foot by 3 foot bed at the bottom of our back porch that gets partial sun so I decided to put all my lettuces and greens there since they love cool weather. I loosened the soil and added a lot of manure and peat moss to it. Then I just spaced the plants about 10 inches apart and started planting.
Starting at the top left is a mint plant from last year that's still going strong. Beneath it is 2 arugula plants. I love arugula and grew it last year and it was wonderful. Every time I eat it I'm like why do I ever use lettuce, seriously its that awesome. Then starting at the top of the next column is a broccoli plant. Beneath it is a butter lettuce plant and a rainbow chard plant. The next 2 rows have brussel sprouts in the back and assorted greens and chards below. On the far right I snuck in a cucumber plant.
I also planted a lilac bush. Its really hard to see since we desperately need to weed this section, but its in the back center of the picture.
This week I hope to sow my peas into the ground and start my summer vegetable seeds.
Looking ahead the following is a list of summer vegetables I'm planning on growing:
Tomatoes
Cherry Tomatoes
Golden Cherry Tomatoes
Cucumbers
Eggplant
Green Beans
Onions
Green Peppers
Basil
Artichokes
No comments:
Post a Comment