Anyhow, I digress.
Wanna know what I'm growing this year? Don't say 'no', because I'm gonna tell you anyway - -
- Tomatos (several varieties)
- Onions
- Green beans (bush)
- Bell Peppers (several varieties)
- Jalapeno peppers
- Cucumbers (slicers and canners)
- Spinach
- Herbs (cilantro, dill, parsley, lots of sweet basil, chives)
- a variety of lettuces
- and tend to my four blueberry bushes that I planted last year (they won't produce for another 2 years)
My parents are farmers and also have an extensive garden. From them I plan to get sweet corn, and melons and squash (if they plant them this year).
For those of you who live in Iowa, here's a pretty neat calendar that explains when and how to plant a variety of veggies to best utilize the climate.
This year I'm also making a few changes to the locations where I plant, and adding eco-friendly practices. A few of them are - -
- Trimming around a few trees with landscaping brick and planting shade-loving leaf lettuces in them. I don't want to take up any more garden space with lettuce when I could be creating more 'edible landscape' in other areas of our yard.
- Putting in 1 or 2 raised beds, in addition to my normal "tilled" garden.
- Putting all of my herbs in pots around our front porch - again, I don't want to use garden space for herbs that can easily be grown in containers.
- Construct 3 rain barrels (out of food-grade barrels obtained from a local cheese factory).
- Construct a compost area. I think I'll either use chicken wire to section off an area of the yard, OR drill holes in a metal trash can and bury it (about 1/2 way) in the yard for composting.
It's only the beginning of February, but I'm very excited to get this 2012 garden started.
It's not obvious, is it?
