Planning and Planting My Garden

Gardening in Hardiness Zone 7a, Heat Zone 7, Sunset Zone 32.

I promised you a progress report on my garden this year. So far… so good!
The springtime weather pattern has started here. That is to say that the weather is fluctuating between warm and COLD.
I have noticed that March is nearly always like this… and who knows where the “In like a lion, out like a lamb” idea came from? It never seems to work here in Central Va!

But on to the garden stuff.

A few weeks back, I started with the first warm weekend, and joined each of the 2, 4’ x 4’ beds into one long bed. So now they are approximately 4’ x 9.5’!

You can see what it used to look like below!

I carefully added some peat moss and some bagged manure/compost mix, and forked over the bed.
Unfortunately, the builder who built the house added some clay-like topsoil to our normally sandy yard, and I noticed clumps of the clay appearing in my beds. Not to worry, the weather should take care of that, right? Sure… if you have the right weather! Yesterday’s storms were our very first instance of the right weather :o

I let the beds sit a couple of weeks (oh and I transplanted the two Swiss Chards next to each other. They survive the winter here).
Last Sunday, I planted a packet of seeds and about a dozen lettuce seeds right into the bed. I know it is early enough because I keep finding volunteer lettuces around the garden! I also planted about 8 spinach plants and a similar number of cilantro seeds. I hope they all come up!

I also added a fig tree (in a pot) and repotted my Chrysanthemum (which is coming to life too).

Inside, I have planted (about 2 weeks ago) 4 Brandywine Tomatoes, 4 Sungold Tomatoes, 4 Big Jim Chili Peppers and 4 California Wonder Sweet Bell Peppers. I also planted 2 Parsley and 2 Sensitive plants.
This weekend I added 4 Citrus basil and 6 Giant Leaved Basil. I love basil and never get enough of it ;)

The indoor seeds have been spending quite some time outside with the nice weather, and already most of my tomatoes have sprouted (they were up in a couple of days), and today I spotted basil, parsley and pepper plants!

Already blooming in the garden, are the Lobelia (Veronica sp.) and one of my phlox plants. My daffodil and several tulips are showing, and a few iris shoots are up too. All the maple trees are blooming, the neighbour’s Bradford pears, the neighbour across the street’s Magnolia virginiana and the weeds: speedwell, Pennsylvania bittercress, Henbit, Purple Deadnettle and Dandelions. The Chickweed is almost in bloom…

And that, is my garden for the first week of March 2008 :)