Victory Gardens Spring 2018

[PirateGirl]

I was going to try garlic this year as well, that will be perfect!

 

[lazy gardener]

Garlic is generally planted in the fall.

 

[PirateGirl]

Garlic is generally planted in the fall.

I can only plant cold weather crops, but we still get the longer summer days, so I suppose it becomes a balancing act between amount of sunlight and temperature. Perhaps I'm overthinking.

 

[lazy gardener]

For the North, you want to plant a stiff neck garlic in the fall. I planted mine in early November, and actually had to break through some crunchy frost to get it planted. Ideally, I should have planted it in Oct.

Just like other fall planted bulbs, (tulip, hyacinth, crocus) it does best if it has the fall to establish a good root system so it can take off with serious growth as soon as the ground thaws in the spring.

Soft neck garlic does better in the south, and I assume it should also be planted in the fall for the best yield.

 

[henless]

I planted my onions in with my strawberries this year, thanks to LG. We'll see how they do come harvest time.

I don't have a pic showing the onions, but here is my strawberry bed. I planted 3 rows of onions in between the strawberries.

 

[lazy gardener]

Onions are heavy feeders. The extra fertilizer shouldn't hurt the strawberries either.

 

[PirateGirl]

So I don't have anything planted yet in the veggie garden except some strawberries that should hopefully come back. Some are 2 years old, some from last summer, so we'll see, but they were sending out runners and seemed to be doing well last year.

I have often been dumping the duck water in the raised bed when I change it out. I figure that's good for now, but will this be too harsh to dump it directly in there once things are planted? I've read mixed things. Thoughts?

I have a small compost bin going. It hasn't been doing much of anything due to the cold and I didn't have enough actively composting material going to keep it from freezing over winter. I'm hoping if I add some moisture back in and turn it a bit that I can mix it all into the soil in my raised beds soon before I plant anything. Its my first attempt with compost and my third summer with anything other than houseplants because I was previously a condo dweller, so we'll see how it goes.

Also I forget, is broccoli something that will grow back each year? It seemed to do pretty well last year until a rabbit got it.

 

[lazy gardener]

Short answer: No. Broccoli is a plant it, and enjoy it for the season plant. It will send up a central head. Then, if you cut that head, it will send out more florettes for the remainder of the season. You either need to keep your Brassicas (broccoli and all it's cousins) covered, or spray it with BT to keep the cabbage moths from laying eggs on the plants which will mature to result in a nasty infestation of green cabbage worms.

With Cabbage, you can harvest the central head, and leave the plant to produce mini heads. I'm trying a leaf cabbage this year. Trocnhuda.

https://www.superseeds.com/collections/cabbage/products/tronchuda-cabbage-85-days

Long answer: If you don't harvest your broccoli heads they will then bloom with yellow flowers where every bead on the head is. Those flowers will then produce seeds. You could then save the seed to plant next year. (most likely would produce poor quality plants, unless you planted an open pollinated variety) Or you could harvest those seeds and use them for winter sprouting!

 

[PirateGirl]

Thanks @lazy gardener you are a wealth of knowledge!

 

[lazy gardener]

YVW.