April 25, 2009: Planting and digging more beds
The plan...
After reviewing all the information about companion planting and knowing that we must rotate our veggies, last year's tomato leaf will now have cukes and beans. The next leaf will be tomatoes and basil (alot of both), to the right of the cold frame will be zucchini and nasturtium for pest control. The cold frame has 3 different lettuces and to the right of it is arugula and spinach with radishes. The new leaf will be parsnips and pepper plants. Marigolds will be planted everywhere in and around the beds, also for pest control.
The action...
Compost manure from Billy. Nice stuff!
Joey bought some organic compost when we didn't know if when we were going to get a delivery. We really wanted to get the lettuce started.
The arugula is planted along the edge and the radishes will go in the middle.
We were dripping with sweat. Good hard work out in the sunshine.
Regular and Pellet style lettuce seeds. The pellet seeds are seeds that are encased in an inert substance that gives them more size. They can be easily planted one inch apart therefore eliminating the need for thinning. Thinning always seems so wasteful that we have a hard time doing it. They are coming up beautifully so we would definitely recommend them.
The darker middle is planted with parsnips and pepper plants will go around the edge. They are good companions.
The lighter colored rows to the right are not planted yet. We are planning to wait 3 weeks, plant a few more rows, then wait another 3 weeks and plant some more. That way we'll have lettuce throughout the summer. But I must say it's hard to leave all those beautiful rows unplanted today.
Preparing the original two leaf beds. Bernie is turning over one of the beds and Joey is pulling the weeds by hand out the other one. Both will have manure added.
Next to finish turning the main leaf beds...
Note: In seven days the plantings shown here began to sprout (May 2, 2009).
