How Does Your - Catching a breather

Garden Grow?

I finally have everything planted and I’m starting to feel like I can come up for air a bit after spending the spring running around like a headless chicken. A good portion of that springtime stress, let’s say about 99.79%, is my own doing as no one stresses me out like me. Since I have a bit of a lull, I thought it might be a good time to reflect on my planting season and which things I’ll do a bit differently next year.

Firstly, I did way too much. I don’t know if that’s because I was excited about getting my own little space in the paper or because I’d been looking for a reason to dig in the dirt again, but either way I started out way too heavy. I feel like I narrowed my selection of plants down really well, but once I made those selections I did not stop to think about how much each plant would produce and the cost of getting each container set up. I decided that more is better when I should have taken my first year much slower. Instead, I thought eight containers per veggie was reasonable. Spoiler alert, it wasn’t.

Honestly, I probably should have only planted three containers per vegetable my first year and built on that year after year, which would have meant way fewer seeds to start and a much smaller startup cost. Whoopsie. Instead I have seven buckets of carrots, seven lettuce, seven radishes, four tomatoes, four bell peppers, four cucumbers, and four green beans. I did have more carrots, lettuce, and radishes, but I pulled some to make room for green beans after deciding that it would be a bad idea to surprise my boss with another monster soil receipt.

Next year, I’m really going to limit myself on how many of each plant I’m sowing and instead give myself a little more variety in produce. Seeds can be stored and saved for years depending on the type, with beans and peas lasting 3-5 years, carrots and parsnips 1-2 years, tomatoes and peppers 3-4 years, lettuce and spinach 2-3 years, and cucumbers and squash 4-5 years. As long as they’re stored somewhere cool, dry, and dark in a well-sealed container, there’s no reason to throw them away or feel like you have to plant them all. Lesson learned.

I am recanting a statement I made earlier this year where I told you that I didn’t think starting seeds was for me. It is, but true to form I did not give myself enough grace to make a mistake. I put a ton of pressure on myself to get it right immediately, something I would never expect of anyone else. Now that I have all my little seed containers prepped and stored for next year I’ll be way more prepared.

I also failed to have a decent plan with regards to getting said seeds to sprout. Was I going to wrap them in plastic or buy a little indoor greenhouse? Did I want to use a heating pad or place them in the dark? Granted, I knew there was going to be a lot of experimentation this year while I figured out which method worked best for me, so I’m not going to be too hard on myself in this area.

Next year, my goal is to have a nice little indoor greenhouse to live in the breezeway of the office. I’m going to keep my eyes peeled for one I can thrift rather than buy new because who doesn’t love a deal? A greenhouse will do two things; first, it’ll greatly reduce the amount of plastic that I need to use to cover plants. I hate using that stuff and I’d like to avoid it if at all possible. Second, it’ll help me keep better control of the gnats, which we’re still suffering with.

If you got through the rest of the newspaper you were introduced to Linsey Lucas, my friend over at Hillstar Farm in Tomahawk, who owns and operates an aquaponic greenhouse. Linsey uses a heating pad to jump start her seeds, just like Myra Nye told me to do earlier this year, which I’ll add to my rotation next year if needed.

I also don’t think that using straw as a layer in my containers was completely necessary. I do think it saved us a little money on soil, but probably not enough to warrant the purchase. I still have a crazy amount of straw left and it made a huge mess. Did not love that. But I do have just enough soil left to use that and a bunch of the straw to grow potatoes, and coincidentally I do have several red potatoes at home that have grown little limbs faster than I could use them, so nothing will go to waste. Perfect.

Earlier I had said that I wanted to plant strawberries and blueberries, and while this is still true, I’d like to ruminate on getting them directly into the ground rather than a bucket. Our patio out back isn’t a very large space, but there’s plenty of room for a berry bush or two. Maybe a fruit tree? See, here I go again, doing too much.

If you see me in a greenhouse buying a tree please chase me out with a rolled up newspaper. It’s for my own good.

Mandee Ellis is a reporter at The Star News. Contact her at Mandee@centralwinews.com.