Gardening: Spring

Well, since spring came kind of late this year, I'm posting this in June. We just got our garden planted over the last two weeks, which is crazy late. There are no pictures with the kids because I was so busy whenever they were out planting with me (planting in Sam-nap-sized intervals).

I decided to focus on just a few things this year, mainly herbs and tomatoes. We will also do a fall garden of greens: spinach, lettuces, and arugula. I decided to start one small new area of perennials: a rock garden with succulents. I always bite off more than I can chew with perennials so I wanted to keep it simple. I got a hens and chicks plant and some sedum at a neighborhood sale, and added some portulaca. The kids added the rocks.





Rachel planted a lavatera from the same sale, and we added a chive plant to our herb area from our friend Cynthia's garden.






We got our tomato and pepper plants from Snakeroot Farm at the Orono Farmer's Market.  I'm excited about the mostly heirloom varieties we picked for this year, with the exception of the sungolds that are kind of like an addiction for me. Here are the varieties they grow at Snakeroot: from these, we will be growing Black Cherry, Frosty's Heart, and Paul Robeson. We are also growing Joe E. Parker peppers, which are apparently hot when raw, but mellow when roasted. We planted the tomato plants with basil, marigold and dill seeds to do some natural bug repelling.

this was a hot, dry day... unlike most of the days lately.

I could not find any herb starts at the Orono Farmer's Market, so I ended up at Sprague's because I did want locally raised plants. I got lettuce leaf and purple basil and  bouquet dill. With these, I planted cilantro seeds.

 
What did Picky 1 and Picky 2 want to grow? Sunflowers and zinnias. So I went out and bought seeds, a variety pack of sunflowers and zinnias (pumila, or cut and come again-- an 18-24" tall variety with big blooms).

Here is a map. We grow our garden in rough quadrants so that we can rotate the tomatoes each year. Ben already dug our compost (and some extra) into the plot, before we added the tomatoes. We'll add some more in a few weeks.