Planting Early Spring Vegetables
As always, I started my seeds under my beloved grow lights on St. Patrick’s Day. I was so worried that I was wasting my time starting vegetables (besides my tomatoes) from seed. But then I thought, what else should I be doing during quarantine? How much housework could I do? Nobody was coming over anyways! How much does extra soil-less seed starting medium and potting soil really cost? Not much! I already had tons of extra cell packs because I always buy more when they are on sale. I knew I wouldn't have enough room under my grow lights, but I also knew that I had southern exposure for the first time, so I held my breath and started my seeds. Heck, seeds are cheap…
My early spring vegetables were beets (Detroit Dark Red Medium Top, Heirloom Chioggia and Heirloom Golden), swiss chard (Five Color Silverbeet), kohlrabi (Early White Vienna), kale (Dwarf Blue Curled), and bok choi Chinese cabbage (Pak Choi Pechay). Thank goodness Ace Hardware, Webster’s Grocery Store and The Dollar General were considered essential businesses during the quarantine. I found different seeds at all these stores and just kept buying more! I didn’t order those seeds from Burpee’s because when I had ordered my tomato seeds, Covid-19 hadn’t reared its ugly head and I had not yet decided to grow other vegetables.
They only had to be transplanted once; from the seed cells to the yogurt size containers. Beginning the 2nd week of April I constantly checked the weather forecast. They should be planted in early Spring. It has to be consistently in the mid-40s and above 32 degrees at night. The last week of April I was so excited that I was able to plant! Four days before planting day, I started to harden off the plants. I do this for all my vegetables. What does this mean? It means that you need to acclimate the plants to the cold and other outside conditions before you plant them. The first day I kept them outside for about four hours, the second day about six hours, the third day I kept them outside for twenty-four hours. On the fourth day, it is planting day. Hoorah!!!
I always prepare a concoction of planting goodness of compost from my compost bin, topsoil, garden soil, and potting soil. I always buy more compost when I buy the other soil because I just can’t make enough of this brown gardening gold in my compost tumbler in one year. (I think a need a second one - it would be a great Christmas present!). I eyeball an equal amount of each and mix it in a heavy duty tote. I lovingly dig my holes for a row of each. I dig my holes about three times larger than I need. I take some of the garden soil from each hole and mix it into my concoction. Then I put each plant in the hole and put my beautifully created concoction around the plant. I push the extra garden soil on top and firmly pat everything around the plant. Then I put some extra compost around the base of the plant. I plant pretty close to the base of the leaves to develop strong roots. This is especially important for root vegetables (beets and kohlrabi) because these lovelies grow underground.
Typically I plant too close together and my rows are kind of sloppy, but The Victory Garden is large and I thought that if my rows were tidy they would have a better chance of success! (I am kind of superstitious.) So I took my time despite the fact that I was cold in my three layers of clothes. My plants looked huge inside but they looked so small in The Victory Garden. Oh well. There was no turning back. I knew that in a few hours they would start to wilt because it’s a bit of a shock to their system. So a few hours later I gave them a drink of water so that the roots would mingle with the soil and be happy. As with all transplants, they need to be watered every day for the first few weeks (as they need it of course). During the quarantine I started saving milk jugs because there is no water at The Victory Garden. So each day I filled my jugs with water from home and took them to the garden. (It’s about a three minute drive.) I also have garbage cans around the garden to collect rain water so that I can refill the jugs. (But this is pretty negligible until summer). Even if the plants don’t look like they are very thirsty, they still need some water because they are getting used to being outside. As with all my gardening, I just eyeball it and water until a SMALL puddle develops around each plant. I only water the soil around the plants, not the leaves.
And then the cold snap happened.
For the next few nights it was supposed to be in upper 20s. But it was the second week of May! Really? This had to happen on my first year of planting these vegetables? So what did I do? I re-read my Crockett’s Victory Garden book, did online research, watched YouTube and discussed my quandary with my gardening friends. I like to read books rather than read online, but my library was closed because of the quarantine! The advice I ended up taking was that of my Victory Garden partner. I had to cover the vegetables overnight! Like my Nana used to say, “better safe than sorry.”
I wanted the plants to get as much sun as possible, so at sunset I cut long strips of painter’s plastic and placed them over the vegetables. Then I laid stakes over the edges to hold down the plastic. Of course I didn’t have enough stakes so I also used garbage cans and rocks. I chuckled to myself and wondered what Victory Gardeners did during WWII. And of course I was worried that I was smothering the plants and that they would die. The next morning I took off the plastic so the plants could “breathe” and so that the condensation that had accumulated on the soil would dry. I did this for the next three days. Yes, I was kind of bummed out and really tired of doing it. Oh well.
Some of the leaves got “cold kissed” from the below freezing temperature because some wind got under sections of the plastic. Not only had it been cold, it had been windy. But again, oh well. I was pretty sure they would be OK, but I still threw myself back into my research and tried to figure out if my plants would survive. As yes, all my worrying was for naught. Over the next several weeks everything bounced back. I am positive that my beets and kohlrabi weren’t crystalized by the frost. I can’t wait to eat some the end of June and smile while I remember the frost and how eerie the garden looked covered with painter’s plastic.
Around Memorial Day it will be time to plant my tomatoes, eggplants, peppers and bok choi. I can’t wait!