Early Spring Garden, Ontario
Second week of April and there is so much on the go.
The cold frames are built and I planted our early brassicas - De Cicco Broccoli and Copenhagen Cabbage - into a good bed of our homemade compost, lovingly turned by the chickens.
Broccoli at the back and cabbage up front, hopefully ready mid to late June. Then will be replaced with warm weather crops - maybe peppers, or basil. The onion sets that were winter sown have spouted and are doing really well. They’ll be planted directly into the garden soon.
The Nasturtium and Marigolds are doing really well and the basil has popped their little heads out of the dirt and are enjoying the grow lights.
Left: 5 different types of basil sprouting. Right: Queen Sofia Marigolds at the top and Empress of India Nasturtium underneath.
Having the seed heating mats for them and for the Black Beauty eggplant and Mexican Sour Gherkins really made a difference for their germination.
Outside in the garden the Brussels Winter Chervil has self-sown through the pathways and is such a pretty and delicious addition to the early spring and late fall garden.
The parsley mix is coming back well from last year’s planting along with many of the other perennial herbs including: sage, tarragon, lemon basil, sorrel, winter savory, oregano, Egyptian nodding onions, lovage, wild bergamot and an olive herb (Santolina rosmarinifolia) I got from Loblaws a couple years ago that is supposed to be a Medeteranean plant and yet has survived two of our winters now and does amazingly in full sun, and dry, in the garden.
Top (left to right): Sorrel; Black currants my neighbours gave me; Winter Savory.
MIddle: Egyptian Walking Onions; Wild Bergamot, and Cardooons returning that a friend gave me; garlic on the left and lovage and rhubarb on the right with some comfrey.
Bottom: Oregano and Salad Burnet; parsley; tarragon, lemon balm and sage all returning for the third year.
I’ve been making some new beds at the front of the house and with all of this rain more flowers are getting going. The daffodils are in full bloom along the front of the house, where they get the most sun and heat, and are getting ready to bloom elsewhere in the garden so I’ll have to look into what to plant when the daffs are blooming.
I’m pretty sure that envelope has the beets in it and I’m so excited to enjoy the Touchstone Gold beets again. We’re all out of our frozen beet tops and beet slices so we’re waiting patiently for our first crop to enjoy again.
None of the greens that I planted when the crocus were in bloom have germinated yet but it’s been especially dry. They kept calling for rain so I didn't water and then no rain would come so Josh finally attached the hose for me yesterday and I gave everything a good soak. Hopefully they’ll be up soon for some early greens.
The forsythia that a friend gave me last year survived the winter, and the chickens, and is now getting ready to bloom so that’s another envelope that I have to find to see what gets planted when the forsythia blooms. I planted it near our new placement for the compost bins, closer to the coop for ease of use and enjoyment for the chickens.
I’m going to grow some sweet peas or something up the front of the bins so that its a bit prettier to look at.
And our little rows of heaved garlic survived being hastily poked back into the ground and are all growing away happily. I’m so excited for homegrown garlic!!! I know it won't be enough, yet, because we use a lot of garlic in our cooking but we’ll build our way up.
Garlic to the left and a border of Lovage and Rhubarb along the outside of the west side of the potager. The Lovage should get quite big this year and provide a bit of a windbreak. If it gets too tall it can be cut back and trimmed to a sort of perrenial, celery-tasting hedge. There’s also a bit of Comfrey midway down.
The same with the onions. I’m letting the onions that I didn’t harvest before the snow came last year to go to seed this year and I’ll plant another crop. I’ll have to find quite a bit of garden space if we ever expect to fill our cooking quota, but what we can do now will be good enough. The little sets from the winter sown onions are all popping up and they will be planted in drifts(bunches of three to five), more than rows, throughout the garden this year. I also planted about 6 Rossa di Milano that I had harvested, but was allowing to dry and forgot out in the garden when it snowed, on the back fence far away from any other onions and we’ll see if they go to seed too and then I’ll have some beautiful red onion seeds as well.
We’re into full swing with the tomatoes.
Last year we started the tomatoes at the beginning of April and they did just fine with the temperature of the house and even the sunlight provided from the windows. They were a little leggy maybe, but we buried them in trenches when we planted them out in the garden and they grew very well.
This year we decided to try completely new varieties, though our top pick from last year would definitely be the Black Cherry tomato that we got from Hawthorn. It had incredible rich, purple tomato flavour and made amazing roasted tomato sauce, as well as producing like mad right up to frost and the green tomatoes ripened well inside continuing into December. It was an amazing 12 foot vine of a tomato plant last year and well worth it in any garden if you have the room.
How about this year? What tomatoes will the Potager produce?
Tomorrow's post …