Gerd's Garden

This year, despite my best hopes, has become yet another year of intense learning about how best to grow things in my home garden. There are worse things, I know, but I am looking forward to eventually having a calm, uneventful spring in which I already know exactly what I like to grow and how to do so. That day, however, as Aragorn says, is not this day.

I posted on a Facebook garden group I joined a while back about all of the different varieties I had planted just by March of this year. Most members, also addicted to gardening, cheered me on, but a few were shocked. And I thought maybe the amount of plants–about half of which are new to me–may be a tad on the high side.

Part of my rush into gardening comes from the fact that, at 44 years old, I had bought a house and could finally do the amount of gardening I’d been dreaming of. Prior to this I had been living in the Bay Area of California, and despite CA being a lovely place to live, it is also extremely expensive, and I knew that I’d never be able to afford the type of house and yard that I wanted. So now I did finally have land–a good-sized yard (.15 total acre for the plot, 2/3s of which is lawn and garden)– in a nice older neighborhood in my hometown. And, boy howdy, was I ready to garden!

Another factor in my gardening obsession is, of course, Covid. I was locked at home for the better part of two years, and even now have the luxury of continuing to work from home. And Covid also brought with it intermittent food shortages and general societal and consumer anxiety, and like many others during this time, I found gardening helped to ease some of that anxiety.

Finally, an unexpected knee surgery in February 2021 literally made me sit down and do nothing for six weeks right before gardening season. I was bored, in pain, and itching with irritation at missing seed starting season again. (We had moved into our house Memorial Day weekend the year before, so that year’s garden started late as well.) So I made up for it by watching approximately a million Youtube videos and buying tons of packets of seeds and canning equipment. Thus the world of commercial flower farming, farmer’s market gardening, and, in particular, homesteading was opened up to me. For over six weeks, I spent most of my waking hours sitting at home watching my videos, and created the most massively detailed, multi-tabbed Excel spreadsheet to help me organize all my gardening plans. As you do.

All that said, here’s a list of new-to-me varieties that I’ve successfully sown this year so far–all 118 of them. All grown from seed unless otherwise noted. Note that these are not all of the varieties I’ve sown, just ones that are new to me this year. Some of the seeds were ones I bought last year but didn’t have any luck with or didn’t get around to sowing. The rest are new this year.

Lat year I started a bunch of seeds. I followed the seed packets to the letter, erring on the side of longer when seed packets gave a range of days. I use my expected last frost date as the first week of May, which, according to both the local weatherman and many online sources, was correct. I didn’t give much extra fertilizer to my starts–in fact, most didn’t get any fertilizer until I planted them out.

That said, I still ended up with a nearly unmanageable jungle of oversized starts in my basement and living room by mid-April. It was a massive hassle up-potting and moving pots in and out doors in May, waiting for that final frost to hit. And then, after the plants were finally outside, at the end of May we had a few days of light frost. Augh!

It was a massive hassle that I am determined to avoid this year. This year I’l planning on a last frost date of May 15, with the reminder that I’m in 5a/b; I have enough time to grow pretty much anything before my first frost date, around early October, sets in.

Things I learned from last year:

Some hot peppers take forever to grow. Like, 12 weeks before they start to put on any significant growth. So, it’s okay to start those early. However, most mild or sweet peppers take about as long as the seed packets state, so 6-8 weeks or so. That said, peppers are EXTREMELY frost sensitive. There’s no point to putting them out until all chance of frost is a distant memory. So this year, I won’t be starting any but my hottest peppers until the beginning of April, at the earliest, with the plan of transplanting my peppers out around early June.

Tomatoes, however, grow really fast. Especially the cherry tomatoes. These were some of my biggest culprits last year. I still have nightmares about them constantly outgrowing their pots. I’m not even going to think about starting these until early April and transplanting them mid-May. (Again, there’s no real rush. I live in 5 a/b. I have a decently long growing season.)

Tomatillos also grow really fast. They are just as bad as the tomatoes, if not worse. I’m not starting them until April. Eggplants, the last of the nightshades I grew, took a while to get going. I put them in the same category with the peppers. If I were growing eggplants this year, I’d start them in early to Mid-March, depending on variety.

Another plant that grows extremely fast is Napa (or Chinese) cabbage. Do not start this one until you have thawed ground and a bed to put it in. When the seed seller says it hits maturity in 60 days, they are not lying.

Some plants I’m not planning on starting at all–I’m just going to wait until the weather is right and sow them in situ. I’ve found that a winter squash sown in plans in May will grow just as fast as a winter squash sown inside in April and them put outside to start hardening off in May. And, if you sow it directly, there’s no need to harden off starts! Other plants that this works well for are peas, beans, nasturtiums, and moonflowers. Essentially, anything with a large seed should work well for this.

Some plants that did not germinate and grow as fast as I’d like are beets, chard, and rutabagas, so I’m going to start these this week, as I like to be able to put out sizable starts. I’m hoping the ground will be thawed by mid-April. I also had no luck with my sweet peas last year, so even though, as peas, they will likely grow quickly, I am starting them early just in case. And as they are a cold-tolerant plant, I should be able to put them out pretty early.