The time has finally come to get some plants into the ground. The temperatures are staying above freezing with the daytime temperatures steadily climbing to double digits daily. I love this time of year!

I realize I haven’t updated the blog about some of the work we have done in the yard in the last few weeks in preparation of getting the deck built, so I will have to get another post written soon, but in the meantime, I will update you with the garden.

There are always a few plants that prefer to get settled in the ground during the cooler temperatures, just a few weeks after the last frosts. These plants are a gardeners favourite because despite the fact that we have started plants inside, this is when we get to get our hands dirty and really get the garden going.

Kurt and I are off for the next week and have some adventures planned, but I knew that this weekend would be earmarked for some gardening time. Though we have managed some adventures over the weekend as well.

So where have I started? The potatoes. I had wanted to try planting them late in the fall to see how they would do in the spring, but I ran out of time. I have read that you can get them started in the fall and they will start growing once the soil is warm enough in the spring, sometimes giving you a bit more of a headstart than if you plant them directly in the spring. I guess we will find out next year.

The potato bed will still be a bit of an experiment this year anyways. See, I had a lot of little potatoes that I had planned to eat over the winter, but the little gems really wanted to grow and ended up with runners that were too long to comfortably pull off and eat anyways. So, I stuck the tupperware container of them out in the shop to dispose of them in the spring and forgot all about them.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago and I opened the container to find a mini jungle growing. I decided since they were so eager to sprout, that instead of tossing them, I would keep them and try planting them.

So, yesterday, after turning the potato bed, I decided to grab the seed potatoes and get them separated and ready for planting. In addition, I did buy a bag of russet seed potatoes as well, just to make sure that I do end up with a potato harvest.

When I started separating the little seed potatoes that had been growing in the shop in a tupperware container, I realized that there were new potatoes already forming on some of the runners! With no soil, water, light and just general neglect, these eager little potatoes had started producing new potatoes. I think this is a good sign of a possible future harvest!

Now, for planting this year, because I have the two types of potatoes, I figured I would be a little more organized with how I placed the potatoes this year. Instead of random plopping of the potatoes, I did tidy little rows that I have mounded. In order to make sure they have plenty of space, I covered them with straw, then a light covering of soil to make sure they had a nice airy surrounding for spreading their vines and pockets for potatoes to form. Once I see some plants above ground, I will start the mounding process and will likely lose my defined mounts and instead end up with a filled bed, but that is ok.

Next to the potatoes will be the onion patch again. I peeled back the fabric and thought I might forego it this year. I added 190L of new soil to the bed. The bed itself should have been topped up a couple of years ago because it was already not filled enough, so the new gardening season gave me the excuse I needed to get it properly filled. I used a bagged garden mix meant for growing vegetables to see how it goes. Usually we just get a truckload of composted soil from a local facility.

I am excited to see how the onions do in this soil. It is nice an loose, hopefully leaving room for the bulbs to fill out to a larger size. The last few years have been tough onion years. Last year, I think the wrong soil was used because it compacted a little too much which I think led to a good harvest but smaller bulbs. The year before, the onion patch got taken over by the potatoes so there was very little harvest that year.

I did decide to put the fabric back down. I really hate weeds, and this fabric idea that we did a few years ago has worked out really well in providing good harvests and helps reduce the amount of weeding required.

I planted 92 bulbs this afternoon, 46 red onions and 46 sweet spanish onions. I didn’t get any shallots this year…though the garden season is still early.

Once done with the onions, I peeled back the fabric for the carrot and beet bed and got all that soil turned. I added a few bags of composted soil into the bed to add some additional nutrients and to help fluff up the soil a bit. This bed had 4 or 5 bags of rich soil added to it in 2023, so topping it up with some compost this year should help keep it producing well.

Once the fabric was back in place, I got to planting. I have allotted 2 rows for radishes, though I only planted one row today. I will plant another in 10-15 days to stagger them. I’m hoping I can keep alternating rows throughout the summer and plant as I pull for a constant harvest of radishes for salads and veggie trays.

I decided to go a little heavier on the red beets this year. I love the yellow, but I think I have overdone it on them the last few years and have recently been enjoying the red beets more often. I planted 85 red beets and 64 yellow beets. I am hoping to pickle some of the red beets this fall for some nice pickle plates over the winter.

In the carrot rows, I managed to get 118 seeds planted. We will see what that works out to once I have seen how they come up and if I will need to thin them at all. I know many people stagger their planting of carrots, but I have found that I just jam them all in at once, and eat them as I need, aiming for the faster growing carrots first. You can usually guess by the tops that form. Come fall, we always have some nice large carrots that last well into the winter. There are always a few that have split, but Basil has no problem polishing those off.

I also did a quick check of the garlic, rhubarb and strawberry plants. All of them are looking great and are coming along nicely and on track for the time of year. We should be eating wild strawberries in the next month as well as some rhubarb. Mmmm.

Tomorrow, or perhaps Tuesday, I plan to get my lettuce, kale and peas planted in the garden. I may also have to find some rosemary and get it in the planter so that it grows nice and large.

Another month and I should be ready to start getting our indoor starters into the ground. I am already looking forward to all the garden goodies that we will enjoy throughout the summer.