It Is Still Cold in Hull and It Is Spring

April 19, 2023

I have just come in from the garden after thinning greens and pulling a few radishes and below is the harvest.

I am on School April Vacation and I have just come back from Baltimore were I got to spend time with my Grandson Izzy. I loved watching and learning from him. I saw the way he paid attention and took his time and I am doing my best to learn attention and focus and calmness from his example.

Spring has come but it is windy and cold but with the help of cold frames the greens are growing.

This spring I even planted some early carrots in a cold frame. These carrots will not be frost kissed but I still will enjoy pulling them in June as I plant the fall carrots. I will be sure to let you know how they taste. Along with the carrots in the picture below are some young spinach and arugula plants.

Again this year I am using intercropping or interplanting. In this gardening method I plant in the same bed many different vegetables with the goal of harvesting and eating from that bed all season. In the bed, pictured below, are chard, beets, spinach, kale, lettuce, radishes and arugula. Right now I am picking and eating the thinnings of all. The first vegtables to be gone will be the radishes, then the spinach, then the lettuce. The beets, and arugula will last all summer, and the kale and chard will provide until fall. In the past few years it is the chard that has lasted the longest producing beautiful greens into November.  All these different varieties of plants do make the decision making around thinning harder but I don’t worry too much when I pull one plant instead of another. I am not seeking perfection but I do try to build the soil and grow as much as I can. Interplanting with the goal of continuous harvest helps with both. The soil is much less worked and the spacing interplanting allows means that the room the mature kale, chard and beets need will be utilized by other faster growing plants which mature much more quickly.  With interplanting you can grow more in less space.

I hope you try interplanting.  When thinning this kind of garden bed a rule of thumb I use is to pull the plants so that right after thinning the leaves of one plant barely touch or don’t touch their neighbors.  In a few days you will need to thin again as the plants keep getting bigger and bigger.  In the early phase of the bed it takes hours to thin with small yields but in a few weeks it will be only a few minutes and there will be enough vegtables for the neighbors.

Please use this form to order your Free Carrot Seeds. For those of you who signed up in Febuary I will be sending your seeds out at the end of the week.

With Love and Hope for the New Year and the Revieved Energy Spring Brings.

Be well, Ted