Community Garden Update

Seedlings!

 

Yesterday it was time to do some more sowing in the community garden bed. Spinach, Rainbow Chard and Kale seeds were all added to the garden. A couple weeks ago Rocket (Arugula), Tsoi Sim (an Asian green), Chives, and Little Gem Lettuce seeds were planted.  The rocket and tsoi sim are showing cute little pairs of leaves already. Pretty soon we'll have food!



Our janky pea trellis

Yesterday during our work session in the garden we decided it was time to put up a trellis for the peas. This trellis will win no beauty pageants, but hopefully it will provide something for our Sugar Snap peas to climb up. They are growing taller day by day and in about a week they should reach the base of the trellis. We also planted out another two rows of peas that had been started in the greenhouse- they're looking very nice. I still can't wait to get my hands on some of those pea shoots!

Pea shoots!

This photo was recently sent to me by one of my fellow gardeners- pea shoots! Our little peas are growing like gangbusters. I can't wait until they're big enough that we can start harvesting some of the shoots. They have such a delightful spring-like flavor! Yum...



Pea shoots in a raised bed; taken by D., a fellow gardener



What We Plan To Grow

Turned soil, waiting for planting

As I mentioned last week, the peas are already in the ground. In addition to planting out the peas, we have planted our tomato and broccoli seeds.  We are growing Tumbling Tom tomato and Santee F1 Purple Sprouting broccoli.  They both need to start off in the greenhouse before they can enter the garden.  The rest of the veggies we plan to grow can't be planted yet.

Next month we will be adding Rainbow Chard (known as "Leaf Beet" here), spinach, kale and arugula (a.k.a. rocket) to the garden.  In May we will plant out our zucchini (a.k.a. courgette) and in July we will plant Claytonia, a waxy leaf that is apparently quite tasty.  We are also planning to grow potatoes in grow bags.  The potatoes are currently at the home of a fellow gardener "chitting".  Chitting is the act of letting the potatoes sprout eyes; these will be the vines once they go in the ground.

I suspect we will also add some other veg to the mix as we hit our stride, but to sum up, these are the vegetables we plan to grow in the WeeKG this year:

Sugar Snap Peas
Purple Sprouting Broccoli (Santee F1)
Tumbling Tom Tomato
Rainbow Chard
Spinach
Lacinato Kale
Arugula
Black Beauty Zucchini
Claytonia
Potatoes

So how about you?  What are you planning to grow in 2012?

Planting Peas

There they are, in all their black and white glory: PEAS!  Last weekend my plotters and I got together determined to do something other than turn soil.  Here in Glasgow most things can't go into the ground just yet; April will be a much more active month.  Nevertheless, it is time to start planting peas.

We selected sugar snap peas and we planted two small rows of them.  We plan to practice succession planting and plant a few rows every couple weeks.  That way we hope to stagger the harvest so that we're not innundated with all our peas at once.  Also, there is plenty of space between the rows to tuck in a few shallow-rooted greens like arugula.

Peas are a nice seed to start with.  They are large (the same size as peas because peas are the seed- did that make sense?) and so it's easy to space them out along the row.  You plant the peas at a spacing of around 2 inches at a depth of about half an inch.  We made depressions in the soil, then each of the four of us planted half a row.  I found it kind of adorable how democratic we were- no one wanted to monopolize the planting.  I think that bodes well for our future work together.

So how about you?  Do you have any seeds going into the ground, or are you waiting for warmer weather?