Grow Your Own Deadline and Preliminary Garden Plans
March 14, 2008 by Andrea 
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Filed under Announcements, Gardening
I can’t believe the month is almost half gone. Winter has flown by and with Spring just days away I need to get my gardening act together. And speaking of gardening, the deadline for Grow Your Own is March 28. Just send me an email with all the pertinent details (your name, blog name, location, permalink to the post, 100×100 photo) and I’ll add you to the round-up. Posts should be from this month, just one post per blog, please.
We’re heading out of town to visit my parents for Spring Break, so I’ll be offline for several days, but when we get back I am going to get serious about the garden plan. We already know what we’re planting and have a vague idea of where it’s all going, we just need to prepare the beds and finish seed and plant acquisitions. Last summer was our first in this home, and we planted a container garden since we didn’t have garden beds prepared, but this year we are ready! So far we plan to have:
- blueberries, 3 bushes
- raspberries, 3 bushes
- strawberries
- rhubarb
- basil, various types
- oregano
- rosemary
- thyme
- mint
- cilantro
- Italian parsley
- peppers, various types, both sweet and hot
- tomatoes, various types
I’m toying with planting some potatoes, perhaps Dutch Creamers because they are tasty in my favorite soup, ajiaco. I would love to plant an apple tree or two in the yard, such as Empire and Granny Smith, I just need to find some good specimens and figure out the best time to plant and where to put them. A bay laurel tree would be nice, too, if it will survive in this climate. More puzzles to figure out!
Happy Garden Planning!
Hey Andrea, this is kind of an odd comment, but I ordered way more seed potatoes this year than I can fit in my garden, so I’d be happy to send some your way. I ordered from here: http://www.mainepotatolady.com and orders should start shipping April 1. I purchased Laratte, Caribe and Green Mountain (all organic). Email me privately if you think you could use some. I’m in Fairfax.
About Bay Laurels – I have one, but they aren’t winter hardy for our region, so I bring it indoors during winter. The smell is out of this world!
Hi, Andrea. Sounds like a great plan
Here’s a tip, in case you didn’t know – mint is invasive, and I mean bad. It took me about three years to get it out of my herb garden. I keep it in a strawberry jar on the patio now.
KimL
We’ve been doing some planning too – and now that I’m reading your list, I just realized something. We forgot about berries! We used to have raspberry canes before the renovations ruined our gardens, and every year I think to myself, we really should plant raspberries. Which then leads me to think about blueberries. And then, of course, strawberries!
Belle
From the comment above… I had no idea mint was invasive, I just brought some from the farm and planted in a vase, it was dry but now it looks pretty… So, your plans will probably turn out into a beautiful garden, can’t wait to see!
Dutch creamer potatoes sound good. We were thinking of growing potatoes too, maybe we’ll look into those you mentioned. Thanks for the idea. Have a great spring break!!
De, good point about bringing in the bay laurel. I’m definitely going to pick up one.
KimL, you are right about mint being invasive. I’ve kept mine in pots for a few years now after learning that lesson!
Muse, I love berries in my garden. The only hard thing about planting the raspberries and blueberries is waiting 3 years for them to start producing!
Cris, I’m excited to get started on the garden!
White on Rice Couple, I hope I have enough room for the potatoes!
Plant your potato in the normal way and then either put a large plastic garbage bag with the bottom cut open or a used car tyre round the plant . As it grows you fill in with mulch such as straw, loose compost, grass cutting etc. Adding another tyre or unrolling the bag. Water round the bottom. This way you can get a lot more potatoes in a small space and harvesting is easy.
Hi!
I have to try the Fluffy Naan from the header…
My comment here, because: One can plant the mint into a garden bed if one leaves it in the pot so that the roots cannot invade the rest of the area.
I am very jealous of the space you seem to have. So far I have to restrict myself to annuals and a few alpine strawberries which do not send out shoots either…
Good luck!