It’s Planting Time!
This is the seventh installment in the 5×5 Garden Challenge Series. Every Wednesday I’ll be posting about the challenge, covering topics that will help all the new gardeners get started. If you haven’t heard about the challenge head on over to the 5×5 Challenge Website, we’ll also be putting up a page here that pulls in all the 5×5 Challenge posts.
This past weekend I seeded my 5×5 Challenge Garden. I started off by measuring off square foot sections of the raised bed. This isn’t a necessary step, you can plant your garden without making neat rows. I find it makes spacing easier when I measure it off in this way. I started by laying a few yard sticks on the sides, then I simply drug a dowel from one side to the next to make my grid.
Back when I first started gardening in raised beds, I use tacks on the side of the beds and strung twine between the make a semi-permanent grid.
Since I had made up a plan earlier (see this post for my 5×5 Challenge Garden Plan), it only took me a few minutes to get all the seeds in the ground. One of the reasons I contacted Renee’s Garden about being a part of this challenge, is because she specializes in seeds for the small home gardeners. Many of her seed packets contain multiple varieties, the seeds are even color coded to make planting easy.
When you plant your challenge garden, use the spacing guides on the back of the packet. Since you’re growing a small garden, you only need to take note of the spacing guidelines mentioned between seeds. Disregard the row spacing requirements. Back when I was planting a few small raised beds, I had Mr Chiots make me a few planting guides with different spacing that were a square foot. As they grow, noticed whether this works in your soil. If your soil is great, you can get away with planting things closer. If your soil is lean, you might need to go a little farther apart. Using the guidelines on the back is a great starting point.
I noticed earlier this week that some of the seeds were already germinating. Of course the chickens managed to nab a few of the bean sprouts before I noticed, but they only got a few.
Yesterday afternoon, I even headed down to my neighbor’s house to help her plant her 5×5 Garden.
Any seeding questions from our newbies or advice from our seasoned gardeners?
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Hello Peas!
I noticed a few days ago that one row of peas is blooming quite nicely. These are ‘Dakota’ peas that were planted on April 5th. Most likely, they’ll be fruiting while we’re back in Ohio (which will be the last half of the month of June). Dailon will most likely greatly enjoy them. I’m also growing ‘Green Arrow’ and ‘Lincoln’ peas.
What I noticed about these plants is that they’re very short, they’re only 12-18 inches tall at best. I have them supported with chicken wire staked with bamboo poles, but I’m thinking I wouldn’t need that at all.
I’m really looking forward to garden fresh peas this year. I have two 70 foot rows up in the main garden, with hopes of filling my freezer with delicious peas. There’s just something not quite right about beef stew or chicken & dumplings if there are no peas in them!
Do you grow garden peas? Which variety is your favorite?
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Cultivate Simple 32: It’s The Little Things
Small changes you can make to live a healthier life:
- First off, don’t get too crazy!
- Don’t believe everything you read, adopting the latest and greatest “health” craze isn’t your best option.
- Incorporate herbs and spices into your diet whenever you can – SPICE IT UP!
- Add more whole vegetables into your diet, particularly for breakfast.
- Add fermented and or cultured food to every meal.
- Add gelatin to your diet as often as possible.
- Swap out tea and herbal tea for water when you can.
Links
- South River Miso for unpasteurized naturally fermented miso & tamari
- Mt Rose Herbs for organic spices and teas. I love their vitablend & seasons of discontent tea.
- Coconut Oil from Tropical Traditions
- The Berkey Guy. Berkey water filters are awesome!
- Big Berkey Water Filter
Brian’s Geeky Corner
Recommended Books
Any healthy living tips you’d like to share?
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:41:01 — 70.1MB)
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Quote of the Day: Joan Dye Gussow
Vegetable gardens are much more important that houses in the overall scheme of things. Agriculture is the foundation of civilization. Houses come and go, but soil must be cherished if food is to be grown for us to eat.
Joan Dye Gussow from This Organic Life: Confessions of a Suburban Homesteader
This is certainly the case here, we are putting off any work on the house and investing our time heavily in the garden, particularly the edible spaces. We know that time invested now will pay of tenfold in the future, especially when it comes to investing in our soil.
I’m already harvesting bountiful salads, both for me and the neighbors. On Friday I traded a big bowl of lettuce for some of my neighbor’s rhubarb. A wonderful trade indeed. I do have rhubarb plants to put in the ground here, but it will be a few years before I’ll be making any pies from them.
How important is your vegetable garden to you?
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Chick Update
The chicks are doing really well, they are now outside 100% of the time. Dailon built a movable chicken coop, following the instructions in the back of Harvery Ussery’s The Small-Scale Poultry Flock. So far we like it, there roosts inside and nesting boxes with outside access. We don’t really need to worry about eggs any time soon, these chickies are just about 5 weeks old.
I love that they’re roosting and acting like little tiny chickens. They scratch, dust bathe, chase insects and they are even establishing a pecking order. It is nice to have them be fully outside and more or less taking care of themselves.
It has been fun to watch these little guys/gals grow up, we’re looking forward to the upcoming months to watch their transformation into teenage chickens.
What’s your favorite animal to watch grow up?
