It’s that time of year again. I’ve been pouring over calendars, seed catalogs, charts, and using up lots of graph paper. Garden plans for 2013 are well under way.
I still have a few things growing currently in the garden – some turnips and broccoli – but most of the broccoli has bolted from heat, and I have about 1-2 more batches of turnips to serve alongside a meal. I also have plenty of oregano and cilantro growing, although the cilantro is beginning to head. The basil has gone to seed… and I have LOTS, so if you’re local and need basil seeds, just let me know!
So, I’m adding a second bed in the spring, and my list of garden plants is growing! This is what I have planned to grow in my Spring garden this year:
Tomatoes - The garden staple. As you know if you’ve read our blog for any length of time, my first year of gardening produced about two tomatoes, if that. It was BAD. This past year, though, things improved, and I actually had enough tomatoes to do some canning! Being the greedy girl I am, though, I want MORE! I think that’s a common gardening disease…. anyway, I want more tomatoes for canning salsa and spaghetti sauce, so I’ve doubled the amount of tomato plants I’m going to attempt to grow. These are the varieties I’m planning to grow:
Jersey Giant
Amish Paste
Bonnie’s Best
ACE
Cour di Bue
Some Pink Tomato I can’t remember the name of
Riesentraube (a cherry tomato)
German Lunchbox (also cherry tomato size)
The first three, I grew this fall. They were the three I liked best out of the 6 varieties I tried growing. The others are new, although the ACE and the Riesentraube my neighbor has tried before and had good success with.
Beans – This is one thing from the garden that all three girls love to eat! In my experience, the pole beans are more prolific, but I still really love the flavor of the Roma beans, which are a bush bean. We’re also going to try edamame again, even though they didn’t do too well in the fall garden. The varieties we’re doing:
Roma (bush)
Pole Beans (random – I already have some seeds leftover from last year)
Edamame
Peppers – I’m trying a few new varieties this year, but also sticking with my tried and true “false alarm” jalapeños I’m going to try and grow pasilla chiles to dry out and use in my Mexican dishes. Varieties I’m going to do this year:
Purple Jalapeño
False Alarm Jalapeño
Chinese 5-Color
Pasilla Bajio
Okra - We LOVE okra around here. With the exception of my youngest, my family will eat them pretty much however I fix them – grilled, fried, pickled… the older two girls even like to much on them raw. The Eagle Pass variety, pictured above is huge and has a great flavor, but it’s a little too large for pickling, so I’m going to grow a smaller variety this year as well:
Eagle Pass
Long pod, green
Cucumbers - We pretty much only use cucumbers for pickling, because the girls don’t care for fresh cucumbers, but #1 especially can eat her way through the pickles. We are going to try two varieties this year:
Boston Pickling
Sour Gherkin
Squash – I have a love/hate relationship with squash. We love to eat it, but it seems like we don’t get very many before the squash vine borers take over and we lose the plants. Still, I always have high hopes, and I’ll be putting all the squash in a new place in the new bed this year, so hopefully I can experience that squash bounty everyone talks about before they get taken over this year. This year I’m planting:
Spaghetti Squash
Lemon Squash (climbing)
Tondo Scuro di pirgenza (climbing – a round zucchini)
Zucchini (summer variety)
Yellow Straightneck
Everything else – This is the rest of what I’m planning to grow, either as companion plants, herbs, or just because they’re yummy:
Garlic
Zinnia
Marigold
Borage
Nasturtium
Sunflowers
Italian Parsley
Cilantro
Dill
Rosemary
Oregano
Sweet Basil
Cinnamon Basil
Purple Basil
Sage
Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce
Sunset Lettuce
Broccoli
So there you have it. Ambitious, I know, but I have high hopes that I’ve at least learned enough from my mistakes to know a little better what I’m doing this year, so WE. SHALL. SEE!
Wish me luck! ~Mama Tutu
I liked your gardening photos and tips. Nicely done!