The garden is growing.
I have all four plots working hard. I keep reading that corn isn’t supposed to do well in the Pacific Northwest, especially if you don’t have very much of it. I planted four corn plants and they are growing up, but we’ll have to see if they actually produce any, well, produce. The four pumpkin plants have settled in for a nice long summer of sprawling, and my surprise onions that accidentally over-wintered last year look like they could be ready any day now. With the early spring we seemed to have this year, it really fired up my motivation to get things started, and started they have. I have only been gently experimenting with vegetable gardening, but it is so much fun, that every year I become increasingly brave, and plant more things. This year I have even started a few things from seed myself, instead of just buying starts at the Skagit Farmer’s Supply or Smokey Point Plant Farm. Last month, when my daughter Kaila came home for a visit, she cooked dinner one night, and fried up some brussel sprouts to add to the pasta. They were so good, and since it turns out that the Pacific Northwest is the perfect climate for growing brussel sprouts, I planted some seeds. The sprouts have sprouted, and things are about to get exciting for our little brassicas.
Another new item to appear in our backyard this year is potatoes. Naturally, I tend to leap without looking, and I bought my seed potatoes, at Skagit Farmers, on a whim, before I knew where I was going to plant them. I already had starts planted in all four of my raised beds, but I knew I could figure something out. I read in “One Magic Square,” by Lolo Houbein that you can plant potatoes in a tub or a barrel or almost anything that holds dirt. I purchased Yukon Gold and Rose Fingerlings. After I got my seed potatoes home, I did a little research, and was disappointed to find out that the Yukon Gold are an early variety and the fingerlings are a late variety, thus having two very different optimal growing conditions. Yukon Golds apparently fruit up all at one time so having a plot of dirt works nice, whereas, the fingerlings will continue to fruit during the growing season, so growing in a container, or a “tower” works well.
Gaerin was kind enough to build me a little box for my fingerlings, that is actually stackable so as the plants grow, I can keep adding soil, and with any luck, the potatoes will have a larger yield. The only option I had for the Yukon Golds was to use an abandoned flower bed at the back of the house, that I hadn’t quite figured out what to do with yet.
I suppose the potatoes will give me more time to think about it too.
At this point, I have had the potatoes in the ground for about a week and a half, and no signs of sprouts yet. I planted them a little late, but I am not going to panic. All they need is ample water, lots of good sun and plenty of faith. I also sprinkled some carrot seeds along the front of the bed, since that soil is so soft, deep and loamy, I figured it just might be perfect for the carrots this season.
For Mother’s Day this year, my beautiful family took me to a Mariners game, which I loved, and then we met up with my parents and my sister at Salty’s for brunch. Salty’s gave all the Mothers little baby tomato plants. I had just transplanted six gallon-sized tomato starts into my garden a few days prior, so the timing couldn’t have been better. My sister gave me her start, and the two Mother’s day tomato babies are in the center of the tomato plot, quickly catching up. I don’t see any blooms on them quite yet, but I have faith.
I have absolutely no idea what variety they are, but I have a feeling they might turn out to be the best of the bunch!
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