I was working in the raised garden beds yesterday and snapped a few pictures and thought I would share them. We currently has 16 raised garden beds along the main garden path. So far we have carrots, beets, cabbage, broccoli, broccoli raab, radish, celery, strawberries, peas and onions planted.
All the beds are 8 feet long by 4 feet wide about have about 8 inches of soil in them. A couple of beds towards towards the end are a little bit deeper because I propped them up on logs so they’d be somewhat even due to our sloped yard.
I heard Wilco had some Walla Walla Sweets in so I grab a bundle of my favorite onions and planted them between rows of radishes. Companion planting rules!
Have you planted your radishes yet? What are you waiting for? Now is the time to do it.
This is how my first round of radish seedlings look like right now. Hopefully in about a month or so they’ll be ready to harvest. Last spring I was able to barter a flat of french breakfast radishes for some avocados.
Cabbage for the Handsome Husband. Cabbage isn’t my favorite, but he’s Irish and loves it so I grow it for him.
The gourmet blend beets are beginning to poke through the soil. It appears these ones will be yellow and red.
Garlic. It’s coming along nicely I think.
And lastly, the square foot garden. So far I have sugar snap peas, celery, onions and strawberries growing in 4 of it’s 32 squares. I think today I’ll plant a few radish and beet seeds.
Have YOU started planting seeds yet? If so, what?
~Mavis
pat Lewis says
Got cabbage, broccoli, romaine lettuce and spinach in! Am planting potatoes today in my new potato growing towers! Love this time of the year! Just finished canning salsa and pickle relish!
Nancy D says
You’ve probably answered this a zillion times….but I have chickens also and when I let them out to meander about they head right for my raised beds as fast as their little legs will go (life isn’t complete until you have a pet chicken run to greet you…it’s hilarious!) What do you do to keep your chickens out of your raised beds? I have one ecspecially tame one that I take out when I’m out in the yard working because she’s so companionable….We like to let them out at dusk and just sit and watch their antics until they put themselves back in!
Mavis says
The chickens will be staying in their chicken run {I think it’s about 30×30 ?} Until this fall after I harvest all the pumpkins. Then they can have the garden to forage all winter. 🙂
Heidi says
I’ve planted basically all of the same things you have with the addition of some peppers.
Question: My cauliflower leaves have started to turn yellow. I’m guessing there is a deficiency in the soil. What would you put on them to green them up again?
Cindra says
Might be too much water and not your soil contents.
Melanie says
Today I planted garden beans seeds, zucchini , cucumbers , bell pepper and tomatoes all seeds . My almost 3 year old loves to water plants so we also planted marigolds around the bird baths
Dale Ann says
Unfortunately Spring just can’t seem to get a good hold here yet. At this moment it is sleeting and snowing heavily on top of the still abundant older snow and very frozen ground.
But, when Spring finally does arrive it goes very fast! If vegetables are to be grown, prepping and planting are done with very little rest in between, and seeds and plants have to be checked carefully for their maturity dates to be sure they fit in the window of our shorter growing season.
Still…I’ve grown bumper crops of pumpkins, cucumbers, sweet corn, pole beans, jalapeno peppers, and tomatoes, as well as the cool weather crops of carrots, onions, garlic, broccoli, lettuce, peas, and potatoes.
Herbs are annuals here, unless they can be brought into a heated greenhouse.
Failed crops have been melons…even those that are said to have a shorter growing season. And many in the area have tried for bell peppers, which also fail because the season is too short.
Cecily says
Try cold frames for melons and peppers I have successfully grown both ( harvested watermelons in August in zone 7b ) using them
Catherine Foster says
Hey, Mavis!
I love this blog and read it every day. Have learned tons from it. I was wondering if people who post might say where they’re from? (For the record, I’m writing from Ashland, OR, zone 7.) It’s confusing when someone says, “Well, we’re just headed into winter,” when we in the Pacific Northwest are in the middle of spring. (I suppose that would be Australia).
Is it possible to request that people identify where they’re from? Am I the only one curious about this? Just a thought. Thank you, Mavis!
Your friend, Cathe
Dale Ann says
Excellent idea Cathe! :0)
I’m up a bit up hill from the north shore of Lake Superior, closest major city being Duluth, Minnesota.
I’m in a zone 3. Folks closer to the shore of Lake Superior shore enjoy more of a zone 4.
Linn says
Mavis,
Did you know that you can replant green onions? If you cut off the bottom root section of a green onion leaving about 1/2 inch of the onion and the root you can poke it back into your garden soil and it will re-grow a whole new green onion!
Brandy says
I’m in Las Vegas (zone 9) so we’re at the end of spring now. My chard is bolting and if I don’t hurry up and eat it it will be 6 feet tall in a week (no joke). I see lots of Swiss chard on the menu next week.
We’re harvesting lots of lettuce; I had a big party last night and picked the lettuce for the salad right before we ate.
I need to get zinnia seeds in the ground soon, and I’m waiting on some vinca seeds to come so that I can plant those. I just picked up 2 orange trees today that will go on my patio in some large pots.
I may plant some more squash seeds this month once we make some room in the front yard.
My spinach that I planted in February had barely started to grow when it bolted. It’s supposed to be a heat-tolerant variety—haha! Fortunately it is an open-pollinated variety, so I will try to collect seeds from it and I will plant on planting it in October. Unfortunately, the seeds have 2 thorns on each seed(!!!) and will be painful to harvest, but maybe I can shake them off into something.
I may plant some more mustard; since it’s hot it will bolt very soon, and since I’m growing it for the seeds, that’s only an advantage.
leslie says
I’m in PNW, about 2 hours north of Mavis, and I planted about a week ago. It’s killing me to wait for my seedlings to come up. Now it turned cold and very rainy this weekend. I’m praying that it doesn’t ruin my seeds. Last year, our spring was so cold, I had to plant 3 times. Any suggestions?
Noelle says
You could cover all of your beds with tunnels of plastic sheeting… That’s what I’m trying this year to protect them from the rain. I live on the central coast of Oregon and we are experiencing the same never ending week of rain. I’ve put in cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower starts. Radishes, carrots, peas, book copy, kale, chard, and onions. I want to get out and do some beets but there’s hardly been a break in the rain!
Noelle says
Should say bok choy, thank you auto correct!
Maggie says
LOL…don’t you love auto correct! It does give you a few laughs!
Catherine Foster says
Thank you, everyone, who put your locations in. I get a kick out of imagining us all planting, all over the US (world?), the same thing at different times, or different things. This is a great community!
Christi {Jealous Hands} says
So far we have: lettuce/greens mix, garlic & 2 varieties of potato (Kennebec & Pontiac). My radishes came up poorly, which is unusual. Carrots going in today which is prbably too late for GA, but oh well. Lots of seeds started inside, too, that will be going out in the next few weeks.
Desi from Idaho zone 5 says
We have nothing planted in our garden yet. It was beautiful for a week and we were going to till it, then it got cold and rainy. We’ll have to wait a bit longer. I was able to transplant some raspberries but so far that is it.
Beth says
I am from Boise and right now my formal living room is full of seedllings- 3 different varieties of tomatoes, various kinds of pepper, broccolini, lettuce,and broccoli. I have 5 raised beds and I went out to look and see what survived our brutal winter and found that some kale, lettuce, leeks, and shallots survived. Today if I can get out there and get radishes, carrots, spinach and other spring things planted I will be thrilled.
I ordered 50 strawberry starts, some raspberry and blackberry plants that I hope will be here next weekend and I am also hoping the weather will be nice so I can spend the whole weekend playing in the dirt!
I plan to grow peas, bush beans, and pole beans for the first time this year- can’t wait to see how that turns out!
I live in a subdivision on about 1/4 of an acre and I am going to steal my husband’s precious grass inch by inch….
Mavis says
Inch by inch Beth! You can do it. 😉