After totally crazy years in 2020 and 2021, I am ready for some normal in 2022. Of course, so far that hasn’t happened. Rain, rain go away…..right! The weather has been crazy! And with the excess of rainfall, we are severely behind in our preparation and planting. Our normal practice is to do our garden prep as soon as it’s warm enough after the first of the year. This normally occurs in late January or early February. This allows us to put in our Spring garden in late February or early March at the latest. Because of the rainfall, the garden area is too soggy to plow. The tractor just sinks down into the dirt. Normally having loose soil is beneficial to your garden because it allows for easier root penetration, thereby allowing access to greater amounts of nutrients and water in your soil. It also permits better growth for root crops, hence larger potatoes, onions and carrots. The draw back is when there is a lot of water exposure, the soil turns into a bog prohibiting plowing and tilling until things dry out. Because of these conditions, we are unable to prep are big garden for planting.
I generally have already planted by this time of year: potatoes, lettuce, cabbage, kale, spinach, chard, carrots, celery, broccoli, collards and onions. The conditions have been so bizarre – I am still picking my broccoli, collards, kale and celery from my winter garden. I was thrilled this past weekend to see the SUN! We spent the weekend cleaning out the greenhouse, raised beds and container beds. I was able to plant carrot seed and a few lettuce plants to replace those that froze a few weeks ago. Because of the delay with the large garden, we will go ahead and plant a crop in the raised beds and containers – kale, lettuce, celery, carrots, chard, beets and onions. This will result in a smaller harvest but will prevent us from falling too far behind. Crops for the big garden, like potatoes and cabbage, will just be put in later. Seed flats are planted in the greenhouse and will hopefully supply is with the next rotation of seedlings. As a balm to his soul, my husband decided since he couldn’t plant anything else this weekend, we would plant fruit trees. We replaced the grape vine that died and planted more peach trees. Our plan is to add a few trees each year until we have our fruit orchard….we’ll see. It was such a blessing to be outside in the sun with my hands back in the dirt. Probably a left over influence from my days making mud pies as a child. It was a great weekend with much accomplished. And while the rain returned again last night – the forecast is for sunny and warm for the next couple of days. More to plant – more to grow!
Now if I could just find my sunglasses…..
