Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Updates

  I know this sounds strange for March, but I have been busy getting the yard and garden ready for the growing season.  I planted my seeds for my peas and my spinach in my Lasagna garden a couple of days ago.  And In my last post I mentioned that I was starting some plants in my kitchen window and yesterday I transferred my Leeks and green onions seedlings into the garden.  I have never planted this early, but after a lot of reading and info from my neighbor I learned that March and April is the best time to plant peas and other early veggies in Utah.  I will be planting my lettuce, carrots and beets in a few days. Then most everything else will wait until May.  Here is a full view of my Lasagna Garden.   I planted my peas along the chain link fence  and I planted the spinach next to it because I read that spinach likes some shade and the pea plants create natural shade for them.  If you look really close you can see the onions and leeks I planted on the right side.  People who know a lot more about gardening are probably laughing there heads off at me right now :-)
Yesterday I also planted a Raspberry bush, Blackberry bush and about 20 additional strawberry plants to what I already have. ( I have a rock wall full of strawberries ) I dug out the grass and made about a 3 foot wide space above my rock wall in our back yard and put some of the strawberries there and I added a row to my front flower garden to intermingle with my flowers. 
 I planted a Currant Bush ( great for juice and jams) and a blackberry bush to the same flower bed last fall so we will see how they turn out :-)      Oh and I also planted a Macintosh Apple tree about a week ago. I already have 3 Cherry trees and peach tree  that I have planted over the last couple of years.  I am still debating about turning my parking strip into a strawberry patch.  I might have my hands full at this point this year.
If you have not noticed I am planting a lot of edible plants among my landscaping.  It is an idea that  I have been keen on the last couple of years.  It is actually  called Edible Landscaping. We have all this extra space in our yards so when you plant flowers you might as well grow edible things along with them like berries, herbs and veggies!   
I planted more seeds to put into my kitchen window today. Cucumbers, egg plant, green peppers, Jalapeno peppers, garlic chives, basil and Parsley. 
Notice how big my lettuce is!  I need to transplant it soon!  I also found this great idea at another blog called the Back Yard Farming where you use plastic strawberry cartons to plant  your seedlings.  They are great because they have drain holes on the bottom and a built in plastic lid to create a green house affect :-)  I will update throughout the growing process of all my plants and hopefully it will be successful!  For those of you that don't have yards to plant if you have a patio or front porch you can grow a bucket garden. There is another good link here.

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