January 25, 2023

Washing Trays – A Gardener’s Winter Ritual

Every winter, the first thing I do to get ready for planting seeds is to wash out my planting trays. I have a collection of at least a hundred and I reuse them as long as I can – until they fall apart. I have 10×20 inch support trays, both mesh and solid versions. And I have different types of planting pots, 6-packs, 4×4 inch pots, and 10×20 cell trays ranging from 50 to 200 cells per tray. My first step of cleaning is to rinse the 10×20 support trays. In…

January 24, 2023

New Plans for My Vegetable Gardens!

I have drawn up new plans for this year’s vegetable gardens! It’s exciting to imagine how the gardens will look and what harvests I will get this year. I haven’t posted to this blog in quite some time. Pre-covid, pretty much. And now that I am starting up again, it is taking me a while to relearn how to post.

December 22, 2021

A beautiful garden calendar

I got an email from Sarah, a vegetable gardener and blogger in Colorado, about a Garden Calendar she has made. It’s a beautiful printed calendar wall calendar full of wonderful photos she has taken of her gardens. The cool thing is each day lists tasks you can be doing in the garden. Yes – there are things that you can be doing in the vegetable garden every day of the year! This is a great gift idea for a gardener you know, or someone who would like to be inspired…

February 28, 2021

Today’s seed planting

Today I planted beets, spinach, celeriac, and onions. Also herbs, parsley, thyme, rosemary, and chives. I planted a lot of beets and spinach. 144 beets and 64 spinach. These are for Aurelia’s Garden, the food pantry donation garden I work at. They are in the trays with 128 little cells and will get planted out in the field in a very early planting on the second week of April. We’re hoping the weather cooperates. The celeriac, onions, and herbs will take more time to grow up. I’ll share them with…

February 22, 2021

Watering winter tunnels with snow

Yesterday I opened my winter tunnels to check on them. My husband and I shoveled open the gate and then shoveled our way to the beds. We still have about a foot of snow on the ground. We shoveled the snow along one side of each bed and then lifted the plastic covers. I was hoping to see nicer looking vegetables. They were very dry. I have a lot of spinach, some arugula, red beet greens, escarole, endive, kale, and broccoli. But all were wilting and small. In past years,…

February 16, 2021

Today’s project – Sowing onion seeds

Today I planted onions, leeks, shallots, and bunching onions. I really think they are my favorite vegetable family to grow. They are the seeds that are planted FIRST – right after Valentine’s Day and right in the middle of the coldest and snowiest part of winter. It’s just so exciting to plant and know that now there’s a part of spring growing and on its way. Onions are very happy grown close together. I worked at a farm that planted their onions in trays with a guide to space seeds…

February 16, 2021

the middle of winter

I certainly feel like it’s the middle of winter right now. We’ve had 25 inches of snow in the past couple weeks, only a couple days with blue skies, but fortunately not too cold for having fun snowshoeing with the dogs. I think this is why Valentine’s Day comes at this time – it’s the time for chocolate and … well… hanging out with the special someone before you get all busy with planting, transplanting, growing, weeding, harvesting, canning, cooking…… Cheers to the icy season!

February 8, 2021

an app for seed planting!

I’ve written a cute little app that reminds you when to plant your vegetables seeds. Set your own frost dates and pick your crops to grow. The app makes a calendar for you. And it has helpful tips and planting information for each vegetable. I hope you give it a try. Some users have been disappointed that Skippy’s Calendar App doesn’t work on an IPad. On a tablet, the date selector doesn’t work. The app works great on phones. I am working on getting the app to work on a…

February 8, 2021

almost time to plant seeds

I usually start planting seeds for my summer garden around Valentine’s Day. That’s just around the corner now. The first seeds I’m planting this year are celeriac and onions on Feb 17. That’s 11 weeks before my last spring frost (May 5). I’m going to plant a lot of onions, most I will donate to Aurelia’s Pantry Garden. I’m planting yellow onions: Cortland and Patterson. Red onions: Rossa Di Milano and Wethersfield Red. Shallots: Conservor, Ambition, Zebrune, and Crème Brûlée (BGS-270). Leeks: Mechelen Blue Green Winter and Bandit. And bunching…

January 21, 2021

winter tunnels with spinach, kale, and escarole

I have two winter tunnels covered with a few layers of winter fabric and one of green house plastic on the top. I also have a half bed of cabbage covered with a couple floating layers of winter row cover fabric. They are all doing well this winter. In this time of short daylight, I don’t expect the plants to grow much. But it’s nice that they are hanging in there. No rodents are eating them and surviving the cold, which is awesome. The plant’s growth will take off mid…

weeks and counting until my last spring frost