Category Archives: Spring gardening

Night time visitors

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You come out in the morning and do some poking around the garden. Looking more closely at things, you notice these small little holes in your soil. Many gardeners know what this is but for the new gardener, this is very good news. You have earthworms visiting you at night. They are helping to turn your soil, aerate, and fertilize. They are very good visitors to have. Occasionally you might visit your garden with a flashlight and notice something move very quickly out of the corner of your eye. You look, and it’s gone. But you’ll see the hole they went into, and you’ll then realize what it was. Fun stuff going on all the time.

My square foot garden coming out of winter

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It’s about time to start planting some things directly into the garden now. This is a picture of what mine looks like under cover. The empty spaces have been the latest things that I’ve been having for lunches and salads, and even a few things for breakfast(baby arugula in scrambled eggs?) Some have been replanted, and some I’ll hold off on to put transplants in the next several days. I’ve still got a lot of good eating under there. Claytonia, spinach, cilantro, onions, carrots, lettuce, tokyo bekana,  bok choi, and some green onions.

Today I direct seeded kale, more spinach, french breakfast radish, and some turnips. With the exception of kale, these will be up quickly and harvested long before the summer garden gets here. 

Starting Leeks

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Here’s the way I do it. I just add potting soil to an empty container and sprinkle 30-40 seeds on top, moisten to water, and then put the top on for a few days. They will probably all come up, but I only need 3 squares of them. That means 27 leeks.

Theres been times when I’ve kept leeks, chives, or green onions in their container for 9-10 months. At some point they stop growing. Then all I do is locate the container in the garden(I keep them outside all the time), and separate the leeks to drop into their respective holes. It’s a good way to always have things ready. Its worked for me anyway.

Tomato cloche

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Got a little wet and cold the past couple of days. I’ve had my early cherry tomato plants out and didn’t want to take a chance of losing them. Just an old orange juice container with the bottom cut out and placed gently over the plant has always done the trick for me. If it gets colder at night I will put the cap on but am sure to remove the cap by morning.

Growing in bags

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If you don’t get the right soil, nothing else really matters. Here’s an example of great soil used in a grow bag made from homemade compost. Pictured in the bag is Queensland lettuce, green ice, claytonia, and red sails lettuce. Harvest it correctly and this small bag will feed you for weeks with a great fresh diner salad.