I’ve learned my lesson from years past and have been holding off on planting in the garden until at least past Mother’s Day, if not Memorial Day weekend. Since I promised myself to wait, we’ve had less and less frosts, BUT I will wait! Running out after dinner if we’re lucky to cover plants is a major pain. I took look at the ten day forecast and looks like we have some warm days and crisp, but not cold nights so let’s garden! I decided not to buy tomatoes from a mail order grower this year, and I’ll just buy whatever I find at the garden centers. It’s pretty dicey keeping things alive for three weeks because you can’t pick your ship dates. (So much easier to keep kids and a cat alive than plants inside! My green thumb stops at the front door.)

What I hope to be eating

Keeping things easy in the garden this year by growing some garlic, beets, zucchini, tomatoes, and spaghetti squash. In addition to keep things easy, we’re keeping it friendly too! I am trying companion planting so with the above plants I specifically chose some flowers and herbs to add to the garden. Nasturtiums will be intermixed with the squashes, basil with the tomatoes, and then marigolds planted throughout. The nasturtium flowers are edible and the kids are looking forward to giving those a try!

I am skipping the lettuce this year and opting for beets not only for beets, but the beet greens as well. I really miss them, and salad greens are so cheap to buy at the store and are so much more work than the other items we grow. (They do taste good, and are easy to grow but so much weeding and succession planting.)

This week I laid down some beets in the garden. I will plant more beets later in the summer after we harvest the garlic.

Beets in the ground

Beets by Burpee

Also trying a new planting arrangement of the squashes because stuff always dies early. I think it’s part seeds not sprouting, and part bugs and fungus. I want to be drowning in zucchini!!! I meant to take a picture before I put the flower mounds in, but the squash plants are the larger round piles, the lines are flowers. they’re about three feet apart, but from this angle they look really close together. We’ll see how this works!

Squash patch

The garlic is rocking as usual and we’re looking forward to harvesting scapes in mid-late June.

Garlic - May 2017

I still have tomatoes to plant in the garden, but waiting for at least Memorial Day. I may try succession planting through June, but we’ll see. It’s nice to have the garden done producing by October so I have a break to prep and plant the garlic. I also have to procure some jalapenos and basil plants for our deck garden because you can never have too much basil (read pesto) in your life!

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https://i0.wp.com/www.thesugarpixie.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/20170521_105733.jpg?fit=525%2C700&ssl=1https://i0.wp.com/www.thesugarpixie.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/20170521_105733.jpg?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1thesugarpixieGardeningbasil,beets,garden,garden 2017,garden tips,gardening,zone 6,zucchiniI've learned my lesson from years past and have been holding off on planting in the garden until at least past Mother's Day, if not Memorial Day weekend. Since I promised myself to wait, we've had less and less frosts, BUT I will wait! Running out after dinner if...Misadventures and fun in the kitchen and beyond