Early Bed all planned

I am so tired of this weird winter! Has me longing for my garden bad! Was outside yesterday in 65° weather puttering in the yard doing some cleanup I hadn't gotten to last fall.

I have my early bed all planned already!

Last frost date in my area is April 25 but with my hoops I am gonna try to start the first week of April. I'll put the hoops on the middle of March to start the mix warming.

If it messes up..I'm just out a few seeds.


The plan for the early bed..It is actually two 2x4 beds with a cattle panel arbor with 4 ft between.

What did you use to plan out your beds so neatly?

CindiLou, it's great to see you popping back in. The bed looks great, and I'm also sick of the weird winter.

One little suggestion: Before draping plastic across the hoops, I would lay it as flat to the surface of the MM as I could for a couple of weeks and anchor it with bricks. The closer that plastic is to the surface, the better it warms. I only used hoops last spring and was surprised at how my air temps inside could shoot into the 90's, but the soil just two inches down would remain in the low 40's until the sun angle put more intense heat on it.

Hi Luci, I actually used Microsoft Word...I use it a lot.

BBG, I forgot about that step! Writing it on the sheet in the journal now! Thanks, would have been frustrated wondering why the ground didn't warm up lol...

Here is the beds late last spring..I have trouble picturing things from words lol..I had Asian beans growing up the arbor during the summer and birds loved it so will do it again this year.

CindiLou

How did you get the arbor to stay like that? Also how strong is it once up? I can get a lot of wind, so need to have something pretty sturdy. love the idea to put between the beds like that.

Thanks for the photo, Cindylou. And it's amazing how something so simple can cause a lightbulb moment. The way you label your squares is the piece I have been looking for to keep it simple. "Lettuce April, replace with carrots".


Why didn't I think of that?

Its great to see some plans already.

I do mine on paper and to signify the replacement crop, I just put a diagonal line from lower left to upper right. On the left I write in the early crop near the top and under the line I write in the replacement crop. I save space by not having to write 'start' or 'replace' in the block since I don't have much room. I like to enter the variety when I finally get the crop in the ground along with the date. That's very important in my plans.

Good luck with the garden. Looks good. I love that arbor between the two. Good thinking for those vining crops.



I agee with BBG about the plastic. This is how I warm up my early beds (from last mid-March). It made a big difference in starting my early crops much sooner than usual. Having that plastic down on the soil heated it up quickly.



Here's the first of my radishes coming up the end of Mar in the A-frame and even some of my lettuce was peeking thru which I hoped to harvest April 17th. I even put the dates to check for ripeness on the labels.

We do what we can to get things early and fresher than the grocery stores.

@CindiLou: I'll have to work on my Word skills, as that sure is niffty.

@quiltbea: I'm going to "steal" your idea as well and incorporate it into my Word document...will just have to make the squares larger!

I keep my sfg covered all winter with a tarp; given our warm winter weather so far I may be planting earlier than ever! I still have rosemary and parsley growing in a pot on the deck!

@everyone, thank you for the compliments and ideas!

@quiltbee, I hadn't thought of the variety on my list. I think that would be important. I have lots of room on the page(printed full size)..lol I just write all over it by the time the season is over. then it is there for me to pore over the next year! After BBG mentioned the plastic I wrote it immediately on the sheet with a target date to aim for putting it on...maybe it would be a good idea to go ahead and do it now. We have NO snow and the temps are ok for puttering outdoors!

@newstart, the arbor is a cattle panel the hubby just nailed in and bent the nail over. He put several (went an looked---4 on each end) heavy nails about halfway in and bent them over the wire. He used the kind that have rings on them? dont know what they are called. So they wouldnt pull out so bad. The pressure from being between the beds helps keep it in place also. Oh..he set it on the ground...it is really stable. Has withstood 50+mph several times in the last year.