Design

I'm anxious to get going, but the weather is still unsettled. In the mountains of North Carolina (Zone 6), where my main summer garden will be this year, it's going to be close to freezing tonight. NOT weather for tomatoes, peppers, or eggplant, nor time to plant beans, squash, or cucumbers. In our main Piedmont vegetable garden (the satellite garden), I've put in asparagus crowns and artichokes (nice perennial vegetables) to accompany the onions, garlic, and leeks already planted. But it should be excellent weather to finish the last two raised beds (in the mountains) and fill them with soil, and hopefully plant some hardy herbs in the corners of the beds above the house. I'm also planning to sow beets, turnips, 'small' carrots, an Asian green mix, summer-mix lettuce, and late spinach, too, as an experiment -- you never know, it might be a long cool spring!

I managed to do a first sowing of mixed mustards, lettuces, arugula, and spinach today. I even poked some nasturtium seeds around the beds, hoping to have a few flowers before frost. Normally, I'd have started a bit earlier with my flats, but heat and dry weather (and recovery time) has kept me inside most of this month. We've had some rain and mild weather, though, the last few days, so it's a good time to make the effort. There's plenty of time for fall greens, to be sure, and I'll be doing successive sowings in flats through late September. I'm also planning to use my cold frame for season extension this year, too, and may even use a second makeshift coldframe with extra hay bales from my straw bale experiment. The straw bales have matured wonderfully well, and is a technique that I'll probably try again, although my experimental results were hindered by woodchuck foraging. I'm not sure whether I'll be able to do the bed prep in time to plant m...