Kale is a leafy cool season crop (meaning you can plant it spring or fall. I planted some transplants back in November and the plants survived the winter well. They have been ready to harvest for a while, but i just got around to it. With Kale I made my favorite Olive Garden soup Zuppa Tuscana, or Italian Wedding soup. Recipe here.
Strawberries are the easiest fruit to plant in your home garden.
You can plant plugs (small transplants) in November from your regional fruit supplier- i recommend Ison's nursery, or you can buy larger transplants from your local garden center in march.
Baby strawberry
One strawberry plant only produces berries it's first year. Then they are unique in that they send out runners to make baby plants. Their babies will produce the next year and so the cycle of life continues on. For the gardener, this means that you only have to buy a plant once!
Because of this, it is up to the Gardener to dug up their old vines and 'train' the baby plants. Here is a video about training you strawberry runners the second year.
Spring is here, it was 72 degrees
yesterday and i got my first garden sun burn! It is time to begin preparing beds for this years garden
season. Since I already have made my raised beds and built good soil
with organic matter and top soil, all I need to do their years is maybe add a little more garden compost (bought or homemade:see
Composting). I still have half a bag of 10-10-10 in storage so these
are three steps to RE-preparing my plasticluture and drip irrigation
raised beds.
Clean Up: clean out your old
plans
Most of my plants were chopped down in
the fall of last year to prevent pest from finding them, now that
the root systems are rotting and the soil is moist, I just ripped up
the old plant root and stalks that remained. Because I use a basic
grid square foot gardening layout, I need to make room for the new
plants. Most of these plants and roots can be placed in the compost
pile (not weeds). (for perennial herbs trim and cut back beds and
for strawberries dig up mother plant and train runners)
Roll back plastic mulch
raised beds after rolling back plastic
One thing I love
about plasticulture is that I can simply roll it back when needed.
The straw I use on top can be removes easily (unlike pine bark) or
simply refreshed with new straw. Although straw does insulate my
bed when placed on top of plastic I simply use it because it make my
garden LOOK pretty and is very cheap!
Pull out and replace drip lines
if necessary- This is the one
time a year you have access to your whole dip lines, so replace them
if needed. You can replace them every year, but I only replaced the
ones I had accidentally cut a hole in!
Break up your soil and add
organic (natural- not 'organic') composted matter and fertilize.
With
my drip lines removed, I can spade my soil to my hearts content. My
soil texture still looks great (8-10 inches of non clumpy semi black
dirt!) so all I needed to do was add about 2-3 pounds of granular
10-10-10 fertilizer. Organic fertilizer is more expensive and this
is one area I don't understand the benefit of 'going organic'. I can
buy a enough fertilizer for my 800 square foot garden for $7.00. OR
I could shovel in 150 pounds of pounds of blood meal and horse manure. If you have it use it- but all i have around here is baby and dog poop! Synthetic fertilizer is simply
man putting natural minerals together in granular form. I'll take
it!
Re-bury drip line- Now
that my soil is ready for the new year. I can rebury my drip lines.
Cover back up with plastic
mulch- You can use all new
plastic much each year (it certainly is cheap enough) or you can
reuse last years. Some beds (like corn) I left alone because I had
very few holes in plastic, others I had to replace. The more holes
you have in you plastic the more moisture escape AND the more weeds
you will have.
Asparagus take patience, and in the
word of Inigo Montoya “i hate waiting”.
I planted asparagus because its a perennial ( comes back every year) that lives and produces for 16
years! The catch is the asparagus plant isn't ready to eat until
it's three years old. Last year I planted a 2 year squid looking bulb like
root. They make like a tall spindly bamboo like bush the first two years. This February I got my surprise! 2 thick shoots sticking out of the ground!
If you want to plant a veggie that will
produce for 16 years. You can get an asparagus root at most garden
stores. The variety jersey knight is recommended for Georgia. The root is places tentacles down. Then 1 year later, you will have your First Asparagus.
