Saturday, January 23, 2010

Spinach, Salad, and Peas, oh my.

Today was sunny almost all day, the perfect day for playing in the garden.

We started the day by heading to Portland Nursery and picking up a few things. I got a four packets of seed; spinach, salad green, snap peas, and snow peas. I'm especially eager to try the snow peas - every garden book and blog about the Pacific NW talks about Oregon Sugar Pod II, so I'm looking forward to see if they do well for me.

I also picked up some pea inoculant, a soil thermometer, organic fertilizer, garden soil and compost. Sadly our new composter won't be producing usable compost for at least a few weeks, but the way it's going, it might even take a few months.

When I got home I used the thermometer right away and it told me that the soil in our yard was 50 degrees! Much warmer than I expected, and also just about what all the seeds I purchased require.

I filled the raised bed in the back yard with one bag of the garden soil and mixed in some fertilizer. As I was working on this, I began to think that that bed might be better used for the spinach and salad greens, and the gardening book I've been using - growing vegetables west of the cascades - recommends starting spinach and salad greens under cover in February.

We had some plastic left over from winterizing the chickens, so I ran over to Home Depot for a few lengths of pvc, and soon after we had a cloche! Hopefully I can plant some seeds tomorrow.

My husband made me two 2x2 beds for our parking strip, and I think that's where I'll plant the peas. I may make cloches for them as well. The peas should be done producing by the time I can plant summer squash, so that rotation should work out perfectly.

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