It’s been quite some time since I’ve done a Grow Write Guild piece. So here’s another…
This week’s prompt is about this year’s garden:
Grow Write Guild Prompt #19: Write about your plans for the coming growing season.
I’ve got some vague ideas, beginning with planter boxes. Simply put, I want some. At least 2. Our backyard is built on some of the most Cthulhu-awful ground in this particular area: bentonite clay. It’s rolling, it’s lumpy, it’s prone to “settling”/collapses. Yes, I know. How lucky am I that I get to grow things in this? So planting boxes is the way to go, I think.
In fact, one of the things that didn’t work so well last year were our tomatoes. Simply put, they didn’t have enough room in the containers we had available. So I’m going to say this today: If I don’t have planting boxes finished or almost finished by May (our normal set-out-the-tomatoes date), I won’t be growing any. Not even cherries or grapes. However. It’s projected to be another dry year, and I can’t seem to get water out to the plants fast enough to combat blossom end rot. I lost more than half of the San Marzanos I planted last summer due to that; it’s caused by inadequate/infrequent watering. In our case, anything less than drowning the containers 3x a day was, um, inadequate.
I was the happiest with the jalapeno crop. There were a bunch. Nothing fancy, just standard jalapenos grown from seed. But we had a lot – enough to freeze some for our Super Bowl snacks in 2 weeks. So, more jalapenos. I’d like to try some Sandias (assuming, again, a planter box) and possibly some pimientos. I think we’ve got enough space to isolate them from each other (sweet vs. hot, I mean) so that mouth-burning sweet peppers won’t be an issue. I think.
Things I didn’t get to last year that I’d like to try:
- Some more herbs for the back wall, possibly a sage bush or some hardy rosemary.
- Part 2 of my ongoing quest to get rid of those damn boxwood bushes. I’ve replaced 2 with lavender plants so far. Only 6 more to go…
- I will have my night garden this year, even if I have to put all the plants into tubs. Even the new Alba I have in mind.
- Greens. Probably not collards, but certainly mustard and kale. Maybe some carrots and beets too. Root plants definitely assume that a planting box is involved.
That’s pretty much my plans for this year’s garden. As always with gardens, we’ll see what happens.
Evil Mom 