Yesterday morning Vince was willing to help me in the garden so I jumped on that. He doesn’t enjoy gardening and has other things he’d rather be doing. You may remember that when Chad was in college and he was home for the weekend, I had asked him to do a few things for me in the garden – things I needed help with – not a lot of things. He said “Why do your hobbies always require work from everyone else?” It’s kinda true. but I’m not the only one who eats what we grow!
I had mentioned to Vince that I needed more soil for my grow bags so after breakfast, he was ready and willing to help. It takes about half a bag of soil, 1/4 bag of manure and 1/4 bag of peat to fill one of the 30 gallon grow bags that I use for potatoes. I don’t fill them up all the way so once the potatoes sprout and grow a bit, I’ll add more soil. But, for today, Vince filled 6 more bags and I got them planted.
These are russets left from last year. I don’t can those and we’ve been eating on them still. I just pulled out enough to get cut up and planted. I don’t use these for baking potatoes but I will use them for hash browns or in soups.
After we had those filled, Vince asked if I wanted any more bags filled. YES! I could plant some of the curcurbits. Last year I said I wasn’t even going to plant them this year but I have a few ideas to try. I’m going to plant them off by themselves and plant lavender, basil, rosemary and other things that are supposed to help deter squash bugs. We’ll see if it helps. I planted 13 bags – sugar pumpkin, candy roasters, pickling cucumbers, Gete Okosomin squash, zucchini, yellow squash. I planted two seeds in each bag and planted two bags of each except something . . can’t remember which one . . I planted three bags. I think I’m done with starting seeds. I still need to buy a few green bell pepper starts and then in late April or early May, I’ll transplant all my starts to grow bags outside. Then, I wait . . and hope for a good garden yield.
nalaxu says
what zone are you in? we can’t plant until mid May. I wish you luck with the squash bugs. Between them, cucumber beetles and squash vine borers I had very little produce from my cucumbers and squash plants. I am blessed with a lot of bugs that eat my veggies. I can’t plant carrots or onions due to the larva that eat them. I put netting over those last year that helped, but the tiny flies still found a way to get to them. Never the less I am looking forward to another year of gardening.
judy.blog@gmail.com says
My new zone is 7a. I won’t plant til probably about May 5 – 10, depending on the weather forecast. Our last frost is usually around April 16. Since I plant most everything that isn’t frost tolerant in grow bags, it’s all planted now and in the greenhouse (or in and out of the greenhouse) til safe to put them outside. I brought my bags of cabbage and Brussels sprouts in today because we have a good chance of big hail tomorrow.
Good luck with you garden. I have a lot of herbs and flowers started that are supposed to deter squash bugs and if that doesn’t work, I won’t plant squash again here.