April 2011 Upper South

Happy Spring my fellow Upper South'ers!

I'm late here in the forum this Spring, but my SFG is ready to plant -- now if the weather will just cooperate! It was almost 90 degrees today -- which is rare here in the mountains of WV for early April. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to do any gardening today. Tomorrow we're back to the normal 50 degree range.

What's in my garden so far...

Garlic -- I planted 6 different types last Fall. They were all up in early March. Some of them were sharing squares with my broccolini and were under plastic until January and they are three time as tall as the garlic that was not under plastic. It will be interesting to compare them when I pull them.

Shallots -- Didn't plant as many as I did last year, but I did use some of last year's crop to plant last Fall. They are doing great too. You can pix of my huge crop of shallots in my forum gallery.

Broccolini: Planted last August 2010 from seedling started in mid-July. They didn't get big enough to harvest any last Fall, but four plants survived the winter and I will probably start cutting tomorrow!

Spinach: The seed that I planted end of August 2010, we ate from it until it got to cold to go out and lift the plastic. It survived the winter and we've been eating on it this Spring. I will pull it up and freeze it after the new spring plants get big enough.

Red Romaine and red oak leaf types: These too were planted last August, they have taken off again this Spring. More lettuce seed of various kinds has also been planted, but is not up yet. I'll plant more squares later too to have a continual supply of greens until it gets too hot.

Sugar Snap Peas: Planted late March. They are just now coming through the soil. Hope I didn't plant them too early, but I did the same last year and they were fine. I planted four squares on the North side of one of our 4 x 4 boxes.

I have tomato seedlings just now getting their second leaves. I'm growing three heirlooms. WV '63 (indeterminate, all purpose), Opalka (indeterminate, paste-type) and Mountain Princess (early, determinate/bush type). I'll buy Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes from the greenhouse later.

That's what's growing so far. I hope to get some radishes in tomorrow before it rains. I may even sew them IN the rain -- that's one of the advantages of using Mel's Mix! It's always so nice and loose, so poking a few radish seeds in with a pencil is no problem! I'll probably go get some Packman broccoli plants this week too. It did so well last year, so we're going for it again this year.

I'll share more about what's going in my SFG boxes later, but for now I'll post this so you can start sharing what you have going this month in your SFG.

Later...
pattipan

I forgot to mention a few more growing things!

Strawberries! They all survived the winter. Last spring I started ever-bearing type strawberries in crates and cedar planters (filled with Mel's Mix) and we had strawberries off and on until October 2010. The crates were starting to fall apart so I transplanted them all into cedar planters, separating some and planting new ones from the runners I had potted. Now we have 7 planters of strawberries! We insulated them over the winter by surrounding and covering them with straw. I have a picture somewhere I'll post if I can find it.

Herbs: Italian parsley is coming back for it's second year in a box near the back door. More herbs and lettuce will go in that box later. I also have rosemary and thyme in pots indoors that I brought in last Fall. Outside in another herb "corner" are pots I left out all winter. It's right up against the house, so most of those are coming back: tarragon, chives and more thyme. I have mint and sage taking over nearby. Will be cutting that back soon! The pots all have Mel's Mix in them too -- why buy potting soil when you have Mel's Mix??

That's it for now, I think!
pattipan