My wonderful husband came home with a bit of spring the other day. He had been by one of the large 'everything' stores and picked up a few flowering annuals. They look sweet! It is amazing how a little bit of color can make even the grayest day look more cheerful! And best yet, I can enjoy them now and when the frost finally leaves I can plant them in my garden.
Trying to decide what to plant in the garden and where to plant it gives me a huge headache. I just find that sort of planning very difficult to do. Perhaps that is why I have some huge, mounding Achillea right in the front of my garden, hiding some smaller perennials in the back. Maybe I should call my garden the 'Secret Garden' to make people think I purposely planted things that would grow waaayyy too large for the garden and that would push and shove and overtake smaller, slower growing varieties. This spring some plants will be finding a new home....I'm just not sure where. And here we go again with that 'pl
anning' thing that seems to escape me!We have many wonderful catalogs. It is so much fun to look through them and find interesting flowers and veges, and to dream of beautiful gardens. We do have to look carefully at the time until maturity, however, since our growing season is only about 95 days. Two years ago we lost all of our tomatoes and peppers to a frost on June 12! Catalogs will tell the best growing zone for the plants. Most of our yard is zone 4, with a few protected places creeping into zone 5 and some wind blown corners probably dipping down to zone 3. But, in addition to the planting zone, one must also take into account the water preferences for the plant and shade tolerance - although we have little enough of that to really worry about!
This year I'd like to try some interesting carrots. We had carrots last year and they were the sweetest ever. The horses hardly got any of them! I've also picked up seeds for Chioggia beets. These have alternating bands of red and white and are supposed to be sweeter than the traditional red beet. I can't wait!
So, what are your favorites that you like to plant? Do you have any great ideas for planning a garden for folks who seem challenged in that area?
I'm Farming/ planting challenged so I'm not help!
ReplyDeleteThose beets sound great! I love beets. I judge a salad bar by whether it has beets or not. No beets means an inferior salad bar in my book, no matter what else is on it.
ReplyDeleteHow do you keep the gophers away from your beets and carrots?
Good question Once Upon an Equine....we plant our veges in raised beds that have hardware cloth stapled to the bottom. So far that has kept all of our ground dwelling rodents; pocket gophers, ground squirrels and voles, away from the spoils!
ReplyDelete