A Special Kind of Crazy

You know you are a special kind of crazy when you find yourself kneeling in the muck planting seeds while it snows.  Yet, as my dissertation supervisor used to say, "And there we are."  It is exactly two weeks since my last planting and so it was time to get the next iteration of seeds in the ground.  

Since ramping up vegetable production after starting our CSA three years ago, I have found that keeping up with successive plantings is key to maximizing production and making the most of our relatively short growing season.  Planting everything on May 24 is fine for one great harvest of each type of vegetable, but then once something is done, that's it.  Whereas if you start planting cool weather vegetables as soon as the soil is workable and keeping planting them every two weeks, you can harvest pretty continuously throughout most of the growing season.   It is easy to plant every two weeks in the spring when you are excited to see things popping up, it is much more difficult in early August when you are in the middle of weeding and harvesting but also need to start planting seeds again for fall crops.

Today I planted more lettuce, endive, peas, spinach, chard and three types of radishes.  I also experimented with a few warmer weather herbs inside a hoop garden: arugula, lovage, borage, and dill.

I stuck my head under one of the hoop gardens to check on the crops I planted on April 1st.  They are up and looking green and healthy.  There is lots of green grass looking pretty healthy under there too but weeding will have to wait until the vegetable seedlings are a bit more established.

I also curbside picked up my baby eggplants from Richmond Nursery.  I have difficulty germinating eggplant seeds.  They are fussy and need high temperatures to sprout.  The plants I received from the nursery are beautiful and healthy.  I am very happy with them and have placed all five under the grow lights with the pepper plants.

All this considered, it is indeed possible that I might be a bit crazy about planting vegetables but at least I know that we and our 2020 CSA families won't go hungry on my watch.