BIG Garden Plans for EMPTY BEDS!

Here is what is on order so far – this will keep me busy!:

Tomatoes

•  Black Krim (Russia heirloom)
• Sweet Persimmin (orange flesh heirloom)
• Costoluto heirloom
• Marmande (North Italian/French fav heirloom)
• Chocolate Cherry
• Razzleberry (gift, I don’t know that I would have found this one)
• Cherokee Purple Organic heirloom
• Pineapple heirloom
• Yellow Pear Heirloom  (I had tremendous luck with these last year)
• Red and Yellow Pear Mix
• Red Lightening Hybrid
• Japanese Trifele Black Tomato (looks like an interesting unique one)
• Brandywine Heirloom

Corn

• Casino
• Mirai Collection (yellow, white, yellow&white)
• Maple Sugar Hybrid
• Ruby Red Queen Hybrid (red edible corn!)

Beets

• Jewel-Toned blend (has Red Sangria, Golden and candy-striped Chioggia beets )
• Touchstone Gold Hybrid
• Detroit Dark Red

Asparagus (nervous about these, have not done these before, worried they will take over beds!)

• Purple passion
• Jersey Giant

Carrots

• Purple Haze Hybrid (purple!  Need I say more?)
• Tendersnax Hybrid
• Purple Dragon
• Red Cored Chantenay

Peppers

• Giallo di Cuneo (Yellow pepper from Cuneo)
• Flavorburst hybrid
• Sweet Rainbow Mix (every color purple, red, yellow, green, orange)

Radishes

• Watermelon (white with pinkish-purple inside)
• Confetti Blend

Pea/Sugar Snap Peas (had great luck with these last year too)

• Super Sugar Snap
• Super Sugar Snap V.P.
• Sugar Pod II

Onions

• Red Delicious hybrid (first time I am doing onions, they might protect the other plants from pests so useful AND edible!)

Scallions

• Tokyo Long White Bunch
• Red Beard

Leeks

• Broad London
• Titan
• Electra

Basil

• Genovese

Kale

• Lacinato
• Dinosaur
• Red Russian

Chard

•  Bright Lights (from two different sources to compare performance)

Spinach

• Whale
• Olympia
• Bordeaux (has red stems)
• Taste of Asia

Other Greens:

• Sputnik Arugula
• Komatsuna
• Maruba Santoh
• Mizuna
• Tatsoi

Eggplants

• Asian Bride
• Little Fingers
• Farmer’s Long
• Fairy Tale
• Burpee Hybrid (big dark one)

Zuccini

• Striato d’Italia – Italian Stripe

Broccoli

• Barbados Hybrid

Cauliflower

• Brocoverde

Brussel Sprouts

• Diablo Hybrid
• Falstaff (red purply ones!)

Watermelon

• Yellow Doll
• Tiger Baby
• New Orchid

Sunflowers

• Sunfower Heaven
• Organic Mammoth Sunflower

I also am planting Marigolds for pest control and a Butterfly/Hummingbird/ecology attractant/enhancement seed collection.

I am planting all these using seed starter kits.  Last year I used the Jiffy kits – the seeds mostly BUT they ran into the plastic lid ciling far too soon, so I had to prop things up, very awkward and hurt the greenhouse impact of the setup.  This year I am trying Park Seed’s Double Bio Dome with 80 JUMBO cells; this setup has somewhat taller plastic lids and comes with seed starter food, which I think sounds beneficial, time will tell!

In addition, throughout the rest of the garden will be our fruit trees, more on that in a future post.

So where to plant all these things?  Using the demo of http://www.growveg.com/ garden planning software AND armed with a copy of Edward Smith’s “The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible” (the software takes into account crop rotation from season to season but NOT “companion” planting – things like tomatoes like carrots but not pole beans), I created the tentative garden plan below… This will keep me busy!