Garden Club Friday 3/ 20 / 09

Welcome to another installment of the Garden Club! How grow your gardens this week?

Before I update on my progress, I wanted to share a website I found this week... it is www.GrowVeg.com . You can put in your garden's dimensions and plan where to plant everything. It calculates the number of plants necessary, and planting dates, etc. according to your zip code. It will also keep track year after year and tell you where to avoid planting so you rotate the crops well.

The only drawback I see to the program is that it uses traditional row plant spacing, and I had to manually add my plants using Square Foot Method spacing. But it allowed me to do it, so I only see that as a small drawback.

The trial is free for 30 days, then it is $25 a year, or$40 for two. I think it would be money well spent, since it will help record keeping for 5 years. It was nice to be able to check that I had started enough tomatoes, etc.

So go check it out! You just might like it! Just don't spend so much time on the program you forget to actually plant anything! ;)

In my house we have made great progress in the gardens... last year the electric company cut a lot of cedar down from under the lines on our property... we have spent the winter (remember- this is a non-collective we... by this I mean my husband and older sons...) hauling cedars to make my garden frames for my new boxes next to the house. This week they hauled another 6 or so trees.

My eldest son also cleared (by shovel and hoe the hard way!) a large plot of land (25' x 36'!) for me to plant corn and beans. This area is rocky, but both those crops are pretty tolerant to rockier soil, according to what I have read.

I have finished transplanting all my broccoli and most of my cabbage. I still need to work more on the cabbage and the cauliflower, and some of the tomatoes are ready to transplant.

On another aside, I have discovered that the presto add water peat things grow the tomatoes much better than the seed starting soil. Just a note for next year.

And I have a question... anyone know why we wouldn't just plant the seeds in the larger pots and avoid the time of transplanting? I am sure there is a reason since everyone does it, but I was just wondering since it takes a lot of extra time.

So that's my week! No photos again, but I haven't slept more than two hours in a row in three weeks... photos will just have to wait!

Link up to the Garden Guru and let us know how your garden grows! Also pass on the word to all the blogs you see about gardening... I'd love to have all the expertise in one place... I can sure use all the help I can get!

Take the photo from the top of the entry, and be sure to link back here so others can find us too.

Have a great day! Each day brings us closer to spring!