2018 Garden Plan & Seed Starting

It should be spring, but it's not. Apparently mother nature didn't get the memo that it's APRIL because it's snowing outside. Again. For the second time this week.

BUT. Spring will eventually come. Which means that eventually I'll be able to plant the garden.

I started tomato seeds inside this year (last year we skipped due to all the chaos, but this year I'm determined!). I started them later than usual, but I also think that the way the weather is going, we won't be able to plant them until at least the second weekend in May at this point.

Tomatoes
2 yellow pear
2 sweet millions cherry
2 plum tomatoes
1 big boy hybrid
1 bloody butcher
1 green zebra
1 zapotec

Everything else in the garden will be direct sow, except the basil and rosemary which I can't seem to grow from seed properly. I'll pick that up at the nursery with marigolds and some flowers for pots on the porch, patio and deck.

Here's my garden plan, doodled in a sketch book this year as I'm trying to spend more time drawing on paper instead of the computer. I'm planning on a full garden (last year we went for extra low maintenance) - Matt is old enough now that he just wants to play with his brother in the backyard and doesn't need my constant attention, so I'll hopefully be more free to tend a fuller garden this summer.

Herbs, spinach, beans, carrots, etc.
Malabar spinach on the pole
Peas and later green beans
Oregano
Thyme
Rosemary
Basil
Radishes (just a few)
Carrots

Vines
Cucumbers on trellis
Spaghetti squash on a new obelisk
Musk melons on trellis

Flowers
Zinnias
3-4 Dahlias

New things this year - Malabar spinach, or vine spinach. I never knew such a thing existed, but I'm so excited to try it. Apparently it's not spinach at all, but an edible leafy green from India with a similar taste that loves hot weather and grows on a vine. We eat a lot of spinach in our family, but I have a hard time growing it since it loves cool weather and the seasons swing too much around here - the soil in the raised beds tends to go from frozen solid to warm too quickly. So this will be a really fun thing for us to grow. The spinach will share the pole with peas and later green beans.

We're also trying spaghetti squash, just for fun. I'm planning on building two obelisks for the garden this year - one for flowering vines in the backyard and another for the raised bed garden, so I'm hoping to train the squash to grow up the obelisk. Originally I was only going to make one, for the flower beds, but I realized it wouldn't be much more effort to make 2 and having another for the garden would be great as a focal point and structural support.