Planting Peas and Potatoes for Patty's Day!
Happy St Patrick's Day!
Here in Kentucky, instead of wearing green we can plant it! Green Peas that is. Local farmers also say planting potatoes is fair game on St. Patrick's Day. I don't know if I agree with either because in many years it stays really cold until mid-April. This year however I am going to take a chance along side my neighbors. Of course I can never garden exactly like regular folks so I'm planting the potatoes in the greenhouse beds.
I may have overdone it a bit in buying 50 pounds of Kennebec Seed Potatoes, so I won't put all of them in the greenhouse. Later when I am no longer worried about frost, we plan to put the rest in the row-garden portion of the yard.
That is unusual for us because we primarily garden in raised beds which is where I planted the peas. The ground was still pretty wet last night which illustrates another reason why I love gardening in raised beds.
Last night I cleared out the bed closest to the greenhouse with a rake to make room for some peas. If I wanted to plant them in the regular ground as in a traditional row garden, it would have been way to wet to plant. I planted four rows of peas, each row on either side of a chicken wire fence.
Also, I usually have a problem planting tomatoes and things that need support because I plan to add the support later, but sometimes I don't get around to it. After doing this with half of my tomatoes last year, I vowed to ALWAYS put the support up prior to planting. So here is my quick pea supports.
The other fun thing about preparing this pea bed was watching the chickens watch me. You can see the coop in the background on the right in the previous picture. I treated the chickens to an occasional worm as I turned over the soil. They were delighted!
Taking worms over to them gave my back a break every now and then. I'm not yet in gardening shape so even prepping one 4x12 raised bed wore me out. That's another reason why I like raised beds - you can work only a few beds at a time and still be very productive.
Later this week in the outdoor garden I hope to plant beds with broccoli, cabbage, lettuce and spinach. I think my pea bed is a pretty good start. I just hope they germinate well. Maybe by planting them on St. Patrick's Day I'll get the luck of the Irish!
Happy St. Patty's Day!
8 comments:
Its Beautiful very good
It must be nice being able to get out and work outside again! We still have a while to go before we can even consider it, but I'm a patient person. :)
I think I'm going to try potatoes in the garden this year and I have two questions you might be able to answer.
1) I've heard of some people putting their eye pieces on the window sill for a few days to help encourage the growth of the eye/drying out before sticking them in the ground. Is this necessary??
2) I dont think we'll be able to plant all the potatoes that will come with the minimum order from our catalog, so, can I eat the rest or do you think they'll be too green or sprouty??
Thanks!!!
My peas are growing, but I did cheat a little and start them in peat wafers in the greenhouse. Spinach is up and growing, from seed sown in the garden. Yay! Welcome spring.
It looks very nice. I hope this year gives you a large crop.
It is funny watching chickens on the patch! I worry that they get so close to my spade when I'm digging that I might just chop one of them in half! they just love those worms, don't they?
It's pretty good to have an outdoor vegetable garden. I just hope that you'll have a good harvest.
I'll try to have an outdoor garden too at home. Great post by the way.
Your spring is definately way ahead of mine...how exciting! I'm trying potatoes this year, thank you for the helpful information! :)
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