Tuesday, May 18, 2010

BeanDreams: "The Plan"

It's just too gorgeous outside today NOT to plant something! Even though it's traditional to start plants here during the May long weekend (this weekend, Victoria Day), I'll be working during the whole thing, as its very busy at work. So, I'll start a little early with my cold-loving plants.

I went this year with a combination of bag gardening and container gardening. The bag garden idea is perfectly laid out in this month's issue of Mother Earth News, which I got for my birthday: http://bit.ly/bKYUuu


They make it sound pretty easy! And if we have to move this summer (which it looks like we will), it should be a relatively movable garden, as well. (Of course, I hardly planted anything last year because we thought we'd have to move, and we're still here...so I'm not letting that stop me this year). I'm using Miracle Grow Premium Garden Soil Plus (0.15-0.05-0.10) Organic Based (nice to see the organic base in there).

I'll be growing sugar snap peas (the kind with the edible pod), bunching onions (also called green onions or scallions), both from McKenzie's seeds, available pretty much everywhere in Canada (http://www.mckenzieseeds.com). I purchased eight starter plants of "Long Red" Cayenne, that are supposed to be good for drying. Looking forward to that! I'm also repotting the sad remains of my "Sweet Million" tomato plants that I bought last year. The weather was so poor I got a total of 2 tiny tomatoes from eight plants. I did, however, manage to keep some of them alive over winter, and they've flowered several times during that period, so I'm hopeful if the weather holds, these two guys will be good producers.

Our "last frost date", always approximate, is May 6, here in the Halifax region.This coming week has good temperatures, no lower than 6 deg. C at night. Should be just right to get the peas started. The peppers I won't transplant until they're nice and hardened off, sometime in early June.

I'll keep posting updates, hoping for an early sprouting! :)

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