The seed catalogue that I was waiting for - from Sand Hill Preservation - finally arrived, so I am ready to make a little more progress on garden planning for 2012. The pages already are marked with big red circles around varieties that I think I "need."
With the fall/winter garden still mostly in place, those crops are on my mind, so the cool weather veggies have had the most scrutiny so far. However, I'll be getting the seed boxes out of the fridge on Wednesday (my day off), and decisions about the summer crops will be made. I know I need more seed for the Wuhib tomatoes, but there is bound to be more to put on the order form.
I've also had a pretty lively email conversation with the guy who is coordinating the move of the Plant-a-Row-for-the-Hungry (PAR) garden, for which I am a volunteer, to the new site in Kennesaw. We are moving to a site in town that will also host a community garden, with raised beds for use by individuals and families, and a demonstration garden tended by the local university. The site is being put together by a counseling center, and its focus is on all kinds of outdoor spaces that can boost health - mental, emotional, and physical. The whole site will be a few years in development, I am pretty sure, but we will be able to start in our space by mid-spring.
A tentative plan has been drawn up, and we have been allotted about 5,000 sq. ft. On the map of the site, it looks like a big rectangle, and it's in a good location. We will have plenty of sunshine and very little trouble with water, either standing on the site making it soggy or running through it too quickly.
I'm hoping that some of the raised beds for the community garden go in then, too, so we will be part of a whole community of gardeners right away. In the meantime, the little group of PAR gardeners will also be getting together to decide how to lay out our space and what we want to grow. I hope they are as happy to get busy as I am! It's only been a couple of months since we harvested the sweet potatoes and pulled all of our equipment from the old site, but I miss hanging out with my gardening friends.
In the meantime, I am almost healed from the wreck that totaled my car in mid-December, and I will be (finally) removing the sad, wilted cauliflower plants out of the garden this week. I bet my neighbors will be glad to see that space cleaned up!
Glad to hear you are healing, but sorry to hear that it was needed. I need to start hunting someplace to get seed potatoes as I haven't had any luck the last 2 years - no one seems to carry them around here.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting how hard it can be to find seed potatoes. My mom's local grocery store - an independent grocery in Choctaw, Okla. - carries them, but I've never seen them in grocery stores where I live. I have bought some in Choctaw before when I've been there visiting in March.
ReplyDeleteAround here, I drive a little further out from Atlanta, to Cartersville, to buy them at a "seed & feed" store. With the big community garden movement in Atlanta, it is likely that there are now sources inside the perimeter, too, but I'd rather not deal with the traffic.
Maybe you will have the opportunity to drive out to a more farmer-friendly area toward the end of February? Hope your hunt is successful!
Yes, I could probably find some in town, but I'm still hopeful I'll find some around here. I think I'll call one store that last year told me "a lot of people have been asking about seed potatoes". Maybe if I call it will get them to order some. They do carry a good variety of seeds and even baby chicks sometimes (not that we're getting those, but... ).
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