garden planning – My tiny u.p. farm

Mid winter garden planning

February 17, 2024February 17, 2024Jen PowellLeave a comment

We’ve had a really weird mild winter this year, but I’m starting to dream of spring. We have some snow on the ground, but I have a good view of the garden (even covered with snow) from my window and I have been sifting through my seeds to see what I’m going to plant this year. With last year’s travel and health issues, my garden wasn’t very successful last year. I want to try to go a little easy this year, but I still want to make a good effort and have a great garden. That said, I tried to rein in what I’m going to plant but it is still a little more extensive than I originally wanted. Here is what the plan is for this year:

*Here is the garden plan for 2024. A little rudimentary but it will work for my purposes.*

I did a quick pen drawing for my garden plan for this year, but you can go as extensive as you’d like if you make one. I did a nice one a few years ago that I actually colored in, on large paper. My problem is that when I go to plant I tend to bring this outside with me so a nice one will become dirty and probably wet from being out there with my. So rudimentary is best in my case.

To make the plan above, I started by going through all my seeds. I have a plastic photo box that I use for my seed storage, and earlier this winter I went through and got rid of the old seeds – anything pre-2019. I had tried to grow some older seeds last year and had a bunch that didn’t sprout, so I figure 5 years is a good mark – anything older I tossed. I also through out any onion seeds also because those are really only good for about a year.

I went through the seeds and decided what I wanted and what I didn’t want to grow for the year. I also bought a few things this year so of course those will be grown too. I had an original pile that was probably half of my seeds, and then I whittled that down more by choosing things I know I definitely want to grow. Some plants I like but know that they are a hassle for what we get, and some things I wanted to grow but I have tried and failed too many times (like Brussel’s sprouts). Here are most of the contenders for this year:

I have most of the regular contenders – pumpkins (including another try at giant pumpkins), and those giant Gete Okosomin squash I grew a few years ago. We’ll see if this summer is hot enough to get a nice crop. In my effort to really rein in, I’m only growing 2 types of tomatoes – one is a Pineapple tomato that I really liked and have grown a couple times. While seed shopping I saw some Devil’s claw seeds and Job’s tears – the job’s tears are good for beads, and I figured maybe i could make some art with the Devil’s claws. We’ll see if they grow and what they are like.

I decided I definitely want to grow carrots, so I grabbed a few kinds for this year – one was a free seed packet I just got. I am growing lots of flowers this year, including 3 types of sunflowers, because I love them. I also am growing cucumbers, beans, green zucchini, broccoli and some other herbs and vegetables.

I make a lot of art and have been working with natural dyes and botanical printing lately, so I decided I would like to grow some dye plants. I started some last year but with everything going on, most of them didn’t take. I did grow some madder plants, I had 3 in the fall, but we’ll see if they survived our winter once the snow is all gone. Madder is good for red dye.

*Here are the dye plants – I did start some Woad seed last year but I didn’t see it come up (I blame the slugs).*

This year’s garden should be exciting. Let’s hope the weather is good.

The garden begins again

February 1, 2022February 1, 2022Jen Powell1 Comment

I started some onion seeds this weekend. I’ve been planning out the garden, even though we have tons of snow on the ground (or maybe because of the snow). I like growing onions from seed – you get more choices than if you buy sets, and it’s cheaper. I like to start them usually at the beginning of February, but figured it was close enough.

I’m growing 5 types of onion this year:

*The 5 onion varieties. I’ve grown three of these before, but the middle (Red of Florence) and right side (Yellow of Parma) are new kinds.*

I like to start seeds in leftover mushroom containers (that the mushrooms come in at the store) – I poke holes in the bottom and put the mushroom containers on trays,or in a peat pellet tray so I can use a lid at first).

They say onion seeds are only good for a season but I have not found that to be the case. I have had good sprouting a few years later.

*Here are the mushroom containers. I labeled seeds with the type. I can fit about 25 seeds in each of these.*

The idea with these is that they’ll grow and be big enough to set out in April or May (depending on our weather). I have space for two beds of onions in my garden. I also read that you can put onions in around other things where you want to deter groundhogs and stuff and they will stay away.

As I do each spring, I came up with a whole seed starting schedule and made a spreadsheet to track when to start, where they are starting (inside or right in the ground), and how many I started. I am growing about 70 different varieties of things this year (3 kinds of tomatoes, 5 onions, etc), so it’s really helpful to make a chart. I cut it down to 70 – I have to restrain myself from growing ALL the types of seeds I have.

*My seed starting table – it will get more full in April when I start some other things. I have grow lights and enough space for 3 or 4 trays of things.*

It’s always exciting starting the gardening season, even if there is not a whole lot of work I can do yet.

Garden Planning 2021

February 28, 2021Jen Powell2 Comments

It’s the middle of winter here in the U.P. We have a bunch of snow, and more on the way today. Typically this time of year I am planning my garden, but I was way ahead of the game this time, and actually drew up plans in the late summer/early fall of last year. I was taking a look at what had worked, what I was tired of picking, what things we didn’t want to grow again this coming year. Because last year was such a mess trying to get seeds (with Covid lockdowns, and everyone wanting to grow a garden suddenly, seed companies were out of things – I had to order from 5 different places to get all the varieties I wanted), I just stocked up in the fall. So I really don’t need to get any new seeds this year. I might add a couple things as spring gets here. We’ll see.

Here you can see my snowy cottage garden as it looked this morning: (We are getting a bunch more snow as I type this).

I started my onions in January – they are doing pretty well. I am growing a large yellow variety called Ailsa Craig. I am on an ongoing quest to get really big onions. Last year I had some get to a decent size, like a small baseball size, but not the full size they could have gotten. We just recently used up the end of my saved onion stash, and we were down to a lot of tiny 1-inch onions at the end. I am hoping to increase the amount of large onions I grow, and hopefully get less smaller ones. Even if that means growing less onions, so be it. Besides those large onions, I’m also growing leeks, green onions, and shallots from seeds. I also started some red onions – the seeds are from year before last, so they are not as viable as I’d like, but I got some to sprout. Onion seeds only last about a year or so – a lot of other seeds are viable for longer. I have been fertilizing my onion sprouts this year – something I read about this winter. I’m hoping that I will have close to pencil-width onions ready to go into the ground by April or May (probably May but a girl can hope for an April warm-up).

I planned this year’s gardens last fall, just drawing up a plan on a couple pieces of paper. I did go through all my seeds this fall, and I made a big spreadsheet so I know what I have to work with. I then had to decide what to NOT grow this year. I tend to want to just grow it all – I am using some restraint and only using about half my seed varieties for this coming year. Below are my plans I drew up:

As you can see, I’ve changed things a little bit here and there – there are some scribbles where I made revisions, but going in I knew a few things we’d do differently this year. We had too many winter squash last year, and I have frozen a lot of them. I fed extras to the deer before they could go bad on us (and because we got really sick of squash). I won’t be growing any winter squash. I’m growing 2 plants of cucumbers (2 varieties, one plant of each). I’m only growing 12 tomato plants total! (I had over 24 last year). We still have a lot of frozen tomatoes. They are good but we were a bit overrun in the fall and I got really tired of harvesting them. The only problem with planning is you never know what the weather in the summer will be like. I hope we have a nice hot summer and those 12 tomato plants actually produce as well as they did last year.

I took the seeds that I decided to grow this year, and set up groups (all rubber-banded together) in terms of when they get started and where – so I have a big group of “start inside in March” that will get started around the first official day of spring. I have a few types of seeds in the fridge cold-stratifying, those all will get started in March – those include two types of Milkweed/butterfly weed. I’d like to get some established in my yard for the Monarch butterflies. I also have some sets of “Start outside” for as soon as the snow is gone and I can get into the soil, and “start outside May/June” for after the last frost (mid-late may, depending on who you ask). I ordered a couple of things that should be coming this spring – Ginger for sprouting (probably coming late March) and also more Strawberry plants – I think those come in April or May.

I’m excited for this year’s upcoming garden. For now I am just looking out the window at our snowy yard and dreaming of spring.