Monday, April 8, 2013

My Seed Planting "Schedule"

In most areas of my life, there's usually a large difference between what I Should do and what I Actually do. For example, I Should just pay the stupid money and get the DVR box. Instead, what I Actually do is memorize the time and channel of my favorite shows and plant myself in front of the TV, like I'm from the 60's or something. I even have to watch commercials! The horror! And then when life gets in the way and I miss my favorite show, I loudly and adamantly complain about it, as if no solution exists.

My refusal to have DVR power doesn't really stem from my inherent cheapness. OK, it mostly stems from my inherent cheapness. But as I see it, it's also a Buddhist lesson in non-attachment. So I miss a program or two (or an entire series, or a complete pop culture revolution). It's just a freaking TV show, right? It's not really the end of the world. And if I catch it the following week, I can pretty much figure out what I missed. It's somewhat more important that I Actually take care of my kids, spend time with my husband, and enjoy life in the moment it's happening.

The whole Should/Actually process works the same for me in the word of gardening. I Should plant seeds in the garden according to this schedule (and so should you, zone 6'ers):
  • Mid-March: peas
  • Early April: radish, spinach, lettuces, onion, potatoes, cilantro
  • Mid-April: beets, kale, greens, carrots, parsnips, turnips, chamomile
  • Early May: basil
  • Mid-May: beans
I Actually am planting seeds in the garden according to this schedule:
  • Mid-March: peas
  • Sometime In April: everything else, on a day or series of days when the weather is nice/baby is sleeping/Sophia is being babysat/we don't have visitors/we aren't visiting anyone/important body parts are injury free.
So maybe I'm not the most detailed gardener around. And I'm sure I'd get better output if I would actually get a plan and stick to it with no exceptions (for those of you who love a plan, you can get your own customized seed starting/planting schedule here) . However, I feel I can take seed planting liberties for a few reasons. First, I generally do my spring gardening in well-draining raised beds with soil that's been amended. This soil heats up faster and is ready to work earlier than normal. Because the drainage is good, I don't worry about the seeds sitting around rotting if the soil is still a little too cold. I also don't worry about planting seeds too late. If I get a smaller harvest than I should, eh, no big deal. I can always let the crop bolt, produce flowers, go to seed, and then let the seeds naturally dry and fall where they want to. When the soil cools down again in September, the seeds wake up and produce the crop that I should have had in the spring. This happened to me last year with a delicious lettuce called mache. Not only did it produce plants in the fall, but somehow the seedlings overwintered and we are NOW eating fresh delicious salads from the lettuce bed (and pathways and other beds and everywhere else the seed went, as evidenced in this picture). My point is, don't get hung up on schedules. Just get out there and get dirty!


Specifically, my current outdoor seed planting accomplishments to date are:
  • Peas, Super Sugar Snap & Burpeanna Early: 3/22
  • Raised bed #1: Brassicas (Cabbage Family) 4/6
    • Turnip, Golden Ball
    • Kale, Dwarf Blue Curly & Lacinato
    • Radish, Watermelon, Salad Rose, Easter Egg II, French Breakfast
  • Raised bed #2: Chenopodiaceae (Beet family) 4/6
    • Beets, Chiogga, Touchstone Gold, Cylindra
    • Spinach, Avon Hybrid, Salad Select
    • Swiss Chard, Burpee's Rhubarb
  • Raised bed #4: Solanaceae (Potato and tomato family) 4/7
    • Potatoes, Red Norland & Kennebec
  • Underneath the grapevines: 4/6
    • Cilantro
    • Chamomile, German
    • Fennel, Bea
(grapevine beds on the left, four 10'x4' beds on the right, pizza box pathway down the middle. still looking for hay to cover the cardboard!)

Veggie garden to-do list:
  • Manure on asparagus bed
  • Plant onion bulbs asap
  • Plant lettuce and carrot family seeds at some point
  • Lay out garden paths with cardboard then cover with hay
  • Set up soaker hoses
That's all for now, but that's plenty. Quick, you have five minutes before the kids get home - go plant something!

Laura




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The Big Bad Blog Beginning: Marketing Gone Awry

So awhile back, I was talking to my home business and web marketing diva. I know what you're thinking right now. You're thinking, "Big deal! Everybody has a home business and web marketing diva." Maybe so, but if you're not talking to Dina at http://www.wordfeeder.com/, then you've got the wrong gal.

Since I have the right gal, Dina said, "You should start a blog to help promote your website."

"Really? How come?"

She then said something along the lines of "Hoogety boogety search engine optimization foogety moogety page hierarchy loogety toot toot meta-tags and strategic links...." and many other extremely smart things. Please keep in mind Dina has never actually said "hoogety boogety" to me in any context. What she did do was give me a brief explanation of web marketing that made complete sense, but the wisdom of which I would completely mangle upon retelling. The relevant gist was as follows - a blog, when properly done, can be a great tool to drive traffic to my website.

I mulled this over for quite some time. Could I write clear and informative articles about the decorative painting business? Er, sure, I think. New techniques, preferred paint and brush brands, offers of free templates.....Ooh, but how bout the funny fellow painter ladies I see at my teacher's studio? Or the nutjobs who I meet at craft shows?

And then I started thinking about other humorous stuff, like the time my mother swiped HER mother's mother's day gift from me and refused to give it back. And the stories from my grandfather about the 8-10 different ways he's accidentally electrocuted himself throughout the years, and yet still stands. Or about the time I spent half a day convinced that drunk people snuck into my yard during the night and dug up 48 newly planted impatiens (until I realized a deer ate them).

That's about the point that I realized that I actually want a blog to show the world how hilarious I am, and if I can throw some web marketing in there, so be it. I can make it work. For example, the two funniest things I do are 1.) garden organically 2.) allow people to speak to me. Since I paint flowers and creatures and landscapes, does it count as web marketing if I blog about growing flowers in a landscape while shouting obscenities at creatures? You betcha! And when my mother does something bizarre, should that go in there too? Absolutely. Ah, yes. Yet another blog is born.

So in the end, I will market my website the way I organic garden - seek out the advice of experts, change it all around, and find myself continually shocked when my system doesn't work. Effective? No. Funny? Oh yes indeed! Keep reading.....