Seeds for 2010

A few days ago I went through the long and arduous process of picking out all my seeds for 2010. I say long and arduous since despite having been all organized and printing out a list of seeds I was going to buy... there is just... just so many... to choose from! It always takes me forever to make up my mind!

There is a basic principal I follow... 90% of my seeds are old stand-bys, plants that I grow every year and the ones I cannot do without. The other 10% are experimental in some way. For instance: I grow string beans every year, but this year I will grow both pole and bush varieties to help me be more accustomed to the pole kind (as I have more familiarity to growing bush types). There are a few things I will just not try again this year, such as watermelon and cantaloupe... maybe its the climate here but ... very disappointing and fruitless- literally! Maybe some other year, but this year in their place will be vegetables I have never tried to grow before... notably: eggplant, tomatillos and radicchio.

Part of the fun thing about gardening is there is so much flexibility to try new things and every year is different. If your willing to try new things you will not only expand your knowledge of growing these plants but you will also learn how to eat them. Who doesn't need to diversify the vegetables in their diet?

So after about $60, this years' garden is pretty much decided upon. I'll have to plan out where to grow them all of course as I will have about 40 different types of plants to contend with now. This garden is all vegetables as usual, but a few flowers make their way in for color and their practical purpose in the whole scheme of things. One of the first things I do when I come home with all my shiny new seed packets is write them all down in my handy garden log... a spiral binder devoted to recording everything to do with the garden, weather and other observations(ex: when did this pest first appear or what trees are in bloom etc). Recorded are: price, vegetable, its variety, the seed company and its weight. Keeping a written record like this will help you compare information from year to year. Did seed prices go up? What variety exactly where those carrots we grew that worked out so well? How many packets of spinach were used? All questions simply answered by taking a look are your seed list record.

January Thaw and Wood Ash

Hello and welcome to the first ever post on Soil On Up. While I am very new to the world of blogging I'm delighted to find a fun way of keeping an online record of various activities throughout the year involving gardening to share with others who also love, appreciate or are just plain interested in what gardening is all about. Through photos, stories and even artwork (I'll put that BFA to work yet!) I hope you will all enjoy what I have to offer.

A garden girl like me should provide you with some background. I have virtually been gardening all of my life... well not literally. As a child I grew up with a mother who was mad about gardening, so it was always a part of my life. As a kid I helped her plant rows, squish marauding pests, weed, water, harvest and preserve. This was all done voluntarily of course for in gardening was always fun and never a chore. Though I wasn't aware of it then, I was slowly absorbing many pieces of knowledge from her and it wasn't until later on in life that I have had truly been able to appreciate that.

Learning doesn't ever stop... not with anything and especially not with gardening. While I have and continue to learn from my mother, I read and experiment endlessly so that now even she admits, "The varieties you grow have long surpassed me in every way." Thanks ma :)

Here in New York state I share with my boyfriend (but I'm gardener mind you) a 3600 square foot backyard garden plot. Only having lived here since 2008, we are continuing to learn the characteristics of this land. As of last year our soil PH was on the acidic side, clayey and very stony.

The 2009 garden... left for many opportunities shall we say. From furry, feathered and slimy pests to an overly moist summer and a devastating tomato blight, this year has me hoping for much improvement... and surely more adventures.

Being that it is January I have a severe case of spring fever going on... nothing new. Due to our very stony soil, cultivation of rows must be dug by hand. I read in one of my gardening books once that if your lucky enough to get a January thaw that it would be wise to take advantage of it. And i did just that! Above you will see me out there thoroughly layered double digging to prepare the rows for spring. Since this is a very laborious activity (two 15 foot rows a day is enough for me), whatever digging I can accomplish now is a 'better sooner than later' scenario... especially when later my energies are better applied to planting, thinning and keeping the young weeds at bay.

So far I feel like I have a good 1/4 of the garden rows prepared. Before I begin digging in I spread out an amount of horse manure which I gathered from one of my friends farm, which she is ever generous to do. Manure is always an excellent idea for adding organic matter to your soil. In addition to that, I have been spreading out some wood ashes. I did some research and found that one way you can improve your soil, especially my kind of soil, is by adding wood ashes. Wood ashes contain a good amount of calcium carbonate, which acts as a liming agent increasing the PH of your soil. It also adds organic material, potassium, some phosphorus, magnesium and trace elements of other things like iron, boron, copper and zinc to name a few. Normal garden applications of wood ash are usually about a five gallon buckets worth for every 1000 square feet.

Our backyard has years of tree debris and on a something of a chilly January thaw-ish day as I prepared rows I built a small fire in the garden putting this yard waste to work. Don't know yet exactly how much of an impact this all will make, but I can't help but think this will do more good than harm. There IS a warning about the possibility of TOO much wood ash for your garden, since your increasing your PH you could cause the soil to become too alkaline. When this happens some of the nutrients in the soil can become 'bound' to the soil and be less available for your vegetables to use. In the case of acid loving plants... such as potatoes, you want to be particularly careful about a heavy hand of wood ash as this can cause potato scab. On the contrary, I read that ... when the time comes months from now, tomato plants will respond well to a 1/4 cup scoop of wood ash to the holes you dig to transplant them in. Another new thing of many I think I shall try doing this year.

Alas, now that our 'thaw' has come to an end and temperatures have dropped below freezing again, I will put my digging to a rest for now and resume my garden book reading and planning for the coming growing season.