When I look out my office window, the first thing I see is a 2′ mound of snow, sparking from the fresh flakes that fell yesterday. But the seed catalogs have been coming in (we left for a week over the holidays, and came home to at least 10 new garden catalogs!), so we’ve been spending a lot of time talking about this year’s garden plans.

One of the things I love to do every winter is draw out my garden. You can click here to view the full sheet as a PDF, with some of the varieties I’m thinking about.

I want to expand my perennial herb beds, stretching them across two rows on either side of the arbor. I have catnip, sage, thyme, and chives in them right now. I also planted a lot of daisies in the beds last year, which I am planning to transplant this spring to the ends of each of the rows.

My aunt gave me a butterfly house for Christmas this year, so I am thinking of adding some butterfly-attracting perennials to the center of my garden, on either side of the main path. Or, I may put the house out by the fruit trees, since Chris has plans for adding some native plants to the “apple guild”.

Jessi’s half of the garden is reaching full-harvest mode!

I probably should have picked the broccoli a couple days ago – it’s just about to flower. There are some nice cauliflower heads out there that I didn’t notice last night. I have more than 20 cauliflower and broccoli plants in the garden, and they seem to be taking quite a while. I started them way back in March – you’d think they would have matured by now. It was a hot spring, though – so maybe that had something do do with it. It’s also getting a bit too hot for lettuce – Chris’s lettuce bolted already. I’ve still got a few heads out there that look like they’ll be just fine for a while.

I’ll have to get up early tomorrow to pick the rest; there are at least 15 more where those came from!

I should add, these were from Jessi’s half of the garden

So I’ve been busy this spring and my garden plot and seedlings aren’t what I pictured before we started this year. But thats ok. You can see the row I’ve had planted for quite a while.

Two weeks later we finished spreading the compost and tilling the garden.

Jessi’s half is on the left; Chris’s half is on the right. Let the games begin!

Welcome back to VEGarden!

The sun is shining and though temperatures are still in the 40s, we have hit some 60º F days – spring is just around the corner! And this means that it’s time to start planning the garden!

So, the first task: starting seeds.

Chris prepared the soil mix: 3 parts peat, 2 parts compost, 2 parts water, and a handful of cottonseed meal. He sifted the peat through a screen to remove some of the large lumps – this left him with a very nice, smooth soil mix for making blocks.