Spring Garden Planning
3 Feb 2012
Wednesday was Grow Gainesville‘s Spring Seed Distribution at the Downtown Farmer’s Market. It was great! I paid my annual dues and picked up only two tiny packets of seeds- cosmos and Seminole pumpkins. Yesterday was a rare weekday off and I used a good bit of it working in the garden. I am slightly ashamed to admit I hadn’t been out to look at my raised beds in a couple of weeks. There’s only been one severe freeze this year but we were out of town when it happened so nothing got covered. I knew I had lost all of my peas and I just couldn’t bear to go out there and look at the damage.
It was almost as bad as I thought it would be. One tiny vine survived. I cleared out the dead 
vines and spent a good long time pulling weeds, mostly damn grass. Weeds never rest, not even in winter. Then I replanted the peas (Amish snap & purple podded) and the swiss chard. Then I watered thoroughly while attacking the flower beds and potted plants in the back yard. I cut back dead growth, dumped dead plants, split bromeliads and succulents, repotted everything, and watered. There were tiny signs of spring growth everywhere.
Then I drew out the plan for the early spring garden. There are only three things left to plant, acre peas, tatsoi, and cosmos. These acre pea seeds are the first seeds I have ever gathered and saved to plant the next year and I can only plant them and hope. As the spring goes on, I’ll be replacing vegetables and greens with perennial herbs and flowers to transition the vegetable beds into flower beds for the move.
What are your spring garden plans?
Feb 06, 2012 @ 22:00:23
Himself & I are planning on building raised beds and trying a variety of things. We have ideas for how to grow tomatoes in a better way than last year (which was all about top heavy containers getting blown over every 3rd day by the annoyingly excessive winds that kept vexing us). We had a lot of success with cucumbers, so we’re trying those again. Herbs & garlic. Possibly some potatoes. I think we talked about beans and cabbage and a few other things, but I’ve lost track. We have to figure out what is appropriate to plant & when, for middle Tennessee.
We’re probably going to use the square foot planting ideas, with 3 or 4 beds of 4×4. Goal? We have to get building them soon; like, immediately after getting back from Gulf Wars.
Feb 07, 2012 @ 09:21:12
That is so exciting! Have you checked out the he Davidson County Extension Office? The extension office will have detailed instructions on what to plant when specifically for your area. Each area is different so you can’t go by what you find in generic gardening books or seed packets.
Feb 07, 2012 @ 13:58:03
Thanks for the suggestion, Andi. I’ll definitely look up the county extension office.