March 27, 2010 First Planting

Although it was about 20 degrees cooler today that last weekend, it still ended up being a perfect day to get out into the garden and start my planting.  I had started some lettuce, scallions, and more recently some peas in peat pots.  Everything was more then ready to get into the soil.

The first thing I had to do was get the soil in shape.  Last week when I tilled the area around the trellis with a shovel, it brought up a lot of very clay soil.  It was noticeably tanner in color than the rest of the plot.   Stacey had the great idea of taking the old potted herbs and flowers that we had dumped over the end of the deck, and them shake out reuse all that good soil.  Between the big pile root balls and some left over dirt in some additional pots from last year I had more then enough rich soil to add without having to make a trip to a hardware store.  I ended up with almost two inches for the entire area around the 12 foot trellis where I needed to plant today.  I spent about an hour with a hoe and a rake working it into the top few inches of soil.  Take a look at the before and after pics, what a difference!

The first plants I put in today were the peas.  Although I have read in various books and websites that it isn't a good idea to transplant peas, I had no problems last year. The peas sprouted very quickly in the peat pots. In a matter of days the seeds were bursting through the soil and the roots were pushing out of the bottom.  I carefully ripped the peat pots from the seedlings before planting them to make sure the roots don't have to struggle too much.  I spaced them pretty close together fitting a double row of 30 in about 4 feet - roughly 3 inches apart.

The second thing I planted today was the lettuce. I have four plants of three varieties of lettuce started: Yugo Red, Amish Deer Tongue, and a Slow Bolt variety. I spaced them far enough apart to put another row in three weeks or so from now.  Despite being three very different looking varieties lettuces, I was amazed how difficult it was to tell them apart at this early stage.  If I had not labeled the plants it would have been nothing more than a guess as to what went where. I'm sure that will change in the next week or two.

Next to the lettuce is a space reserved for the Red Dragon Carrots which I will hopefully plant next weekend, but just a foot over from that empty plot is where the scallions went. The scallions went in very easily. I simply pulled the peat pots apart and laid them out in a single row trough of ten plants. The roots and plants are so small that the one I attempted to remove from the peat pot crumbled apart.  I was able to gently place it in with the rest, but I decided after that to just leave the rest in the peat pots.

Beside the scallions I also sowed two rows of spinach seeds.  After loosening and leveling the soil in the area, I took a stick and dug out a narrow trough about an inch or two deep.  The spinach seeds are pretty small but large enough to handle.  I threw about 20 between the two rows knowing that I'll have to thin out some of them.  I'm hoping to have about 5 or 6 of the best plants per row.

This season is starting pretty smoothly so far!