Planting Day Eve

May 19.

It's as much fun as Christmas Eve, New Years Eve--any eve, really.  There's something special about the day before something special.  The day before Planting Day is no different!

It was (relatively) warm, so I decided it couldn't wait any longer.  Plus, it was already May 19 and Lord willing it wouldn't frost again--although some nearby towns had snow flurries just four days earlier!  This is Chicagoland, mind you, not Alaska, so that's pretty incredible for May.

Above is my garden planner, which I drew to scale (you'll see a better picture tomorrow).  I've labeled each raised bed, and what goes in each of the beds.  Hubby scanned the blank form and made a PDF of it, so all I do is print one off each year and I'm ready to plan.  Really, I should plan this out not on Planting Day Eve, but at least a week or two earlier.  Or, if I plan to plant cool weather crops (peas, lettuce, spinach, etc.), I need to plan this out in March.  So don't procrastinate like I did.  :)  Of course, since we're not in the best place financially, I had to wait to see if we could even afford to have a garden this year.

I took a week's worth of grocery money and spent every penny on our garden--and it was the perfect amount!  It was easier to purchase compost in bags than in bulk, so that's what I did.  My sweet Joseph helped rake it into each square of each bed.

One of my guys--can't remember which--thoughtfully raked in what we had saved of the fireplace ash.  This went into the beds where I would be planting my tomatoes, since the ash is high in potassium and helps prevent blossom-end rot (opposite the stem, you'll see a grayish spot that spreads--I still harvest those, cut out the bad spots, and it's good to eat/can).   I can say that so far this year (it's now July), it's working.

I had various spots of garlic sprouting up randomly, so Jacob dug those up and transplanted them for me into the garlic bed.  I ran out of last year's garlic crop already, so I wanted to save as much as I could.

The garlic bed.

Below, you can see the purple onions that unexpectedly popped up from last year's crop.  I thought I had harvested them all, but apparently a few never sprouted, and here they were!  I will transplant those tomorrow, on Planting Day.

Finally, here are the two cardboard trays of veggies and herbs for my garden!

Can't wait for tomorrow!


Back to life,
Christine

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