A Wagon Wheel Garden?

I dream about you every night and every day.  These words are lyrics to a song, but it's also how I feel about home grown veggies.  I love them, and I can't wait to dig in dirt this spring and summer.  I have the garden mulched with leaves from my neighbor's yard.  I acquired at least 20 bags of leaves and 3 bales of straw at the end of the season.  The straw will be used as mulch and weed control in the garden.  The leaves will be used in the compost bin and as an amendment in the garden.  

I've done some winter sowing and started a few seeds inside.  I've read that you should buy good seed, but what does that really mean?  I've purchased my seed from the local hardware when they're on clearance, the Dollar Store, Ebay to on-line growers.  So far, I've had success from all.   This year I'm going to try saving seed, at least from my heirloom tomatoes. 

I like a little creativity in my garden.  Last year I added an antique orchard ladder.  This season, I would love to add a wagon wheel.  I saw this picture at Two Men and A Little Farm blog,  and thought it was a creative way to add the wheel to my garden.  I found 2 wheels on Craig's List.  If I'm able to purchase one for a reasonable price, I'll be building this wagon wheel herb garden.  I've also thought about alternating yellow and orange marigolds in it.  Should I do the herbs or marigolds?  If this doesn't work, I have my eye on an antique plow. 

While I'm waiting to make a deal on the wheel, I've checked my seeds and this is what will hopefully be planted in my 2013 Garden if all germinate:

Tomatoes: 

• Tiffen Mennonite
• Cherokee Purple
• Hillbilly
• German Johnson
• Delicious
• Early Girl
• Pink Brandywine
• Homestead

Cukes:

• Salt & Pepper
• National Pickling
• Straight Eight

Greenbeans:

• Bush Blue Lake 
• Bush Jade 
• Pole Blue Lake 

Peppers:

• Hungarian - Yellow Wax   
• Jalapeno
• Cayenne - Mix of colors
• Belle - Grand Bell Mix 

• Spinach  - Giant Noble 
• Zucchini
• Squash

Herbs:

• Lavender
• Basil
• Dill - Long Island Mammoth (Purchased from Big Lots last year. Germinated and did great)
• Chives
• Oregano

I'm going to try growing Zinnia, Snapdragon, Petunias and Marigolds this year too.  We'll see how that goes.  What are you planning to grow this year. 













 

Winter Sowing Has Started - Part I

I have the winter blues! I decided to start my vegetable seeds over the week-end. Planning my garden takes the blues away.  This year, I decided to try winter sowing. I've been saving plastic liter, juice and milk bottles. Anything that I can cut and punch holes in the bottom for drainage. I started about 20 bottles over the week-end. Tomatoes, dill, zuchinni, squash, sunflowers and petunias. Tomatoes, dill and petunias reseed, so hopefully I will have a successful germination rate.  Research showed that the squash and zuchinni will also do well. l will continue winter sowing through-out February. I'll start a few tomatoes, cukes and greenbeans inside to ensure I have something to plant.  I set these bottles outside my kitchen door, but will eventually move them to my picnic table.  It had just started snowing, so they received a nice coating.   

Stay tuned for additional posts.  If you are a gardener and use the winter sowing method, please share your experience.