I am on a garden-book-reading spree it seems. I just finished The Beautiful Edible Garden (got it as an ebook from Pioneer Library Systems, our local public library). It had a lot of suggestions on how to arrange edible plants into an existing decorative garden. Mostly not relevant to how we have the yard laid out, but probably helpful for others. They did recommend a three-group crop rotation of brassicas, legumes, and nightshades, and ignoring herbs, lettuce, and alliums. So that was similar to The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible which I read a few weeks ago and liked.
Spring planting! It’s going to freeze next week!
Paula and I were going to plant things tomorrow, but it’s looking quite chilly. It’s just gorgeous out right now. So we spent a half an hour or so and got two kinds of onions (yellow granex and white granex) from sets in the beds, two kinds of potatoes in containers (experimenting with burlap sacks, potting soil bag, and cardboard boxes to make hilling them easier to get more potatoes), and seeds of French breakfast radish, green wave mustard, and Oregon sugar pod II pea. The peas we already have a few little vines of but I figured another round wouldn’t hurt to replace some since they blanch and freeze well if we get a lot.
Learning about the best parsnip planting times – February week 1
Last time on parsnip news you can use: “My parsnips (“Harris model”) said on the package I could do either spring or fall planting. While researching whether this was true for Oklahoma, I came across a useful post on an Oklahoma gardening forum (expand the featured answer by “macmex” who is located north and east of us, in Talehquah in northeastern Oklahoma) It sounds like you CAN plant them in fall, but as a biennial, they may flower (“bolt”) in the spring before the roots are big enough to be useful. So, we’ll see what happens with my fall-planted ones, but I have just put out a row of them today and I will put out another row each week until the third week of February and see what happens to those.”
Notes to self on growing mustard greens
I borrowed the ebook of Grow Cook Eat by Willi Galloway from the public library. So far the most useful factoid is that mustard green seeds can be planted when the soil temperature reaches 45°F. According to Oklahoma Mesonet we are there now. In the fall, the book says to plant when temperatures stay in the 70s in daytime. I assume that means air temperature. That may be a little harder but we can try!
Airflow to prevent damping off?
Wes rigged up a small fan with power supply to pull air through the plant window. Fingers crossed it works! There’s always taking the baby plants in and out each day for sunshine but I’d really rather not. Because I’m lazy.
Damping off fungus attacks
Well we are having some damping off fungus in the plant window. Lost the only surviving tommy toe tomato seedling and a lot of onion seedlings are falling over. I had hoped we left enough air circulation despite our cat blocking plexiglass but apparently not. The chef is looking into tiny fans to put there. I’ll have to start another tommy toe too.
Learning about the best parsnip planting times
My parsnips (“Harris model”) said on the package I could do either spring or fall planting. While researching whether this was true for Oklahoma, I came across a useful post on an Oklahoma gardening forum (expand the featured answer by “macmex” who is located north and east of us, in Talehquah in northeastern Oklahoma) It sounds like you CAN plant them in fall, but as a biennial, they may flower (“bolt”) in the spring before the roots are big enough to be useful. So, we’ll see what happens with my fall-planted ones, but I have just put out a row of them today and I will put out another row each week until the third week of February and see what happens to those.
I also read everywhere about parsnip seeds that they do not keep well. Mine are going on two years old now so I put a lot out to make up for potentially poor germination rates.
Trimming the onion shoots for root growth
I read recently (but can’t for the life of me remember which book) that when sprouting onion seeds, you should trim them to promote more root growth. I did this to half of my sprouts. This will make sure it doesn’t kill them first. If these turn out okay I’ll do the other half.
Fruit plants in the ground!
I planted the peach tree and currant bush in the front and back yards, respectively.
Peach and currant planting
Well it’s my day off so it’s time to plant yesterday’s new arrivals. I secured them out of the way from box- and stick- interested supervisors Gram and Briar.
