What are you planting this year?

[horseymama2]

I am still deciding on what all I will be planting, it is an ever evolving list. I have already planted some cool season stuff: carrots, spinich, and a few types of lettuce. I will put in some sugar snap peas, broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower also, but not to much of those I am the only one who likes most of them. Summer things, I am going to try the three sisters, cucumbers, tomatoes for canning, bell peppers, potatoes, onions, sunflower seeds, butternut squash, watermelon and cantelope. I will replant cool season veggies in the fall, we have a nice long growing season here. I am throwing wheat for the chickens to scratch in hopes some of it will germinate, I have some up in one pen from last fall. I have a strawberry bed already, a couple of grapevines, a couple of blueberry bushes, wild black berries, plums and pear trees. I am planning to buy some more fruit plants/trees. I want a peach tree, some dewberry vines(like black berries), more blue berries, cherries, ..... Sounds like a lot of work, I hope I can pull it all off.

 

[Chefmom]

I'm still working on hard soil in the new garden, so I'm actually going to cut back a little and take a few garden beds to grow cover crops. I think I'll plant buckwheat, wheat, etc and then I'll cut the greens for the chickens and mulch and have my husband till it in. I also want to start some new beds and get a strawberry bed going as well.

My usual veggies are onions, peas, kale and broccoli in early spring with greens and spinach. Then cauliflower and then when the season hits it's cucumbers and the usual tomatoes for canning and a lot of cherries for snacking, lots of beans both pole and bush, maybe I'll take a whole bed and see how much dried beans 100sq ft will get me. Of course I'll take a bed for zucchini, I love Costata Romanesca and it isn't a heavy producer, so I plant about 14 plants in the bed with herbs around and flowers. That is plenty for fresh eating and zucchini bread for the freezer.

Winter squash this year is winter luxury pumpkin and another that I have to decide on this week......

I'm unsure about carrots, still the hard soil, but the little French ball carrots caught my eye and I think I'll try those and see, they look like little beet shaped carrot balls.

Ooo, more hot peppers for sure. I dried them last year and made hot pepper powder and that was NICE. I'm the only one who likes sweet peppers, so I'll cut back on them to put in more hot peppers.

I usually have onion seeds going by now, but I'm spending the extra money and going with onion plants this year, maybe I'll have better luck with getting a good bulb with plant starts. I can never get enough onions!

And this year I want more flowers, I purchased flats of bedding flowers last year from a very solid and reputable greenhouse and I was very disappointed. I noticed the huge barrels of Miracle Gro and I think the flowers were on a intravenous drip or something because very few of the flowers EVER bloomed that year. They were huge and in full bloom when I bought them, but probably because they had Miracle Gro in their little veins!! So this year I'm growing my own flowers and raising them with wholesome compost tea!!

As usual a lot of herbs, I didn't have near enough rosemary last year so I'm putting it in the main garden instead of just in the herb garden, I have a day or two to make up my mind to spend the money at Guernsey's (coupon) and get some more apple trees. I was really happy with the grape vines 2 years ago.

With the weird warm weather I've been busy getting ready to start seeds etc. Now we have two inches of snow and I'm in full Spring Cleaning mode!! GGGrrrrrr.

 

[Dawn419]

I was going to post my "dream list" of everything that I'd hoped to plant but decided to stick with my reality list, instead.

So far (as of 3/13/12) I've got:

*Six, 20' rows of 3 different varieties of fall-planted garlic

*Jersey Devil Paste Tomatoes (94 seeds sown)
*Arkansas Traveler Tomato (54 seeds sown)

*Black Krim Tomato (13 seeds sown)
*Cherokee Purple Tomato (14 seeds sown)
*Green Zebra Tomato (10 seeds sown)
*Red Belgian Pepper (18 seeds sown)
*Peter Pepper (11 seeds sown)
*Bhut Jolokia Pepper (18 seeds sown)
*Golden Greek Pepperoncini (24 seeds sown)
*Joe's Long Cayenne Pepper (12 seeds sown)
*Sweet Banana Pepper (36 seeds sown)
*Jalapeno Early Pepper (18 seeds sown)

*Several double rows of Little Marvel Peas

*Marjoram
*German Chamomile
*Lemon Bee Balm/M. citriodora
*Wild Bergamot/M. fistulosa
*Anise
*Marsh Mallow
*Calendula
*Wild Dagga/Lion's Tail

*Jerusalem Artichokes/Sunchokes

*Goji Berry
*Josta Berry
*Crandall Black Currant
*Red Lake Currant
*White Imperial Currant
*Pixwell Gooseberries

 

[Wannabefree]

I have so far

60 onions yellow and sweet
lettuce mix
27 strawberries
50 Amish paste tomatoes
100 rutgers tomatoes
25 Watermelon Beefsteak tomatoes
40 Early Jersey Wakefiled cabbage
40 ish banana peppers
14 tabasco peppers
8 jalapeno peppers
2 stevia
2000 ish carrots
purple basil
8 eggplant
Several hills of taters
green basil
oregano
chives
and a bunch of various flowers

That's all I can think of right now. I didn't get peas planted like I had wanted. Didn't get turnips planted either. It has been too wet to till and plant much, but thanks to my new greenhouse I still got a lot accomplished

I plan to plant a whole lot of other things as well...just not time yet...I hate waiting

 

[Tatter]

Every year I plant the same thing. I am not one who likes change and so I use my heirloom seeds of broccoli, beans, peas, carrots, corn, tomatoes, beets. I also have my rhubarb and black/red raspberries. What is new this year however is my herb garden, just making it bigger and adding 22 different herb plants that grow in zone 4. Nothing special at all, nor truly different. Yes I'm bland, but I like it that way.

 

[Joel_BC]

Dawn, we grew Black Krim tomatoes in 2010. Extremely satisfying flavor and and texture. One of my favorite tomatoes ever. Only thing was, though grown in our greenhouse and given TLC, they tended not to ripen at the shoulder... stayed green... but that's not a biggie.

Tatter, the most recent factor influencing us to try new varieties here is that we had blight come through our neighborhood & general area in 2010 and 2011. Truly devastated the tomato & potato crops in many greenhouses, yards, homesteads, and farms. On our place we didn't get it in 2010, but did in '11. We've experimented with new things in the past, if not every year then certainly many years. But now we have to try some new varieties.

 

[Tatter]

With the introduction to blight one almost has to experiment to see what works and what doesn't, so that totally makes sense in what you have to do. I am lucky I guess as I live in an area that is nothing but farm land. The land here is rich and dark and there hasn't been any reports of blight, but of other diseases that the farm land overcomes easily.

 

[Dawn419]

Dawn, we grew Black Krim tomatoes in 2010. Extremely satisfying flavor and and texture. One of my favorite tomatoes ever. Only thing was, though grown in our greenhouse and given TLC, they tended not to ripen at the shoulder... stayed green... but that's not a biggie.

Glad to hear you liked this variety so well, Joel. It will be my first year with it and when I researched it, it sounded really good. I got the seeds in a trade so I hope they do well.

As of 3/14/12:

Rareripe Peach (10 seeds)
Meyer Lemon...from a wild tree ( 24 seeds)
Thai Red Roselle (18 seeds)
New Zealand Spinach (36 seeds)
Swiss Chard 'Bright Lights' (36 seeds)
Giant Noble Spinach (36 seeds)
Chinese Cabbage "Michihli) (24 seeds)
Chinquapin Oak (1 seed that germinated)
Alyssum 'Royal Carpet' (24 seeds)
Red Texas Star Hibiscus (4 seeds)
Yellow Butterfly Pea Vine (2 seeds)
Scarlet Sage (24 seeds)

Have PawPaw tree and Sweet Pea (flower not veggie) seeds soaking tonight that I will sow today.

Picked up several more mini-greenhouses today so I can continue the madness.

Some things probably sound like I'm going overboard on, but I'm starting seed for 2 gardens. Is that a great excuse, or what?

 

[me&thegals]

Only thing was, though grown in our greenhouse and given TLC, they tended not to ripen at the shoulder... stayed green... but that's not a biggie.

Joel--that's actually the way they look when ripe. Kind of unusual but cool

 

[JacksFlock]

Here's our garden plan for 2012:

http://gardenplanner.motherearthnews.com/garden-plan.aspx?p=195740

Can't wait to try the Krim tomatoes!