New year, new gardening ambitions

Our back yard really doesn’t have a lot of room for gardening and only small sections of it get full sun. Since I also have a black thumb, I tried keeping my garden ambitions modest. Last year, we grew/planted the following:

Peppermint

Basil

Brandywine tomatoes

Cherokee tomatoes

Horseradish

Garlic (fall planted)

I am a little concerned about the peppermint plant. Towards the end of the summer and into fall, the plant looked sickly with yellow and brown leaves. Looking online, this could be a fungal infection, which could spread to other herbs in the garden and is nigh impossible to get rid of. One person suggested cutting the plant down to the soil level, taking the plant out and re-potting it in fresh compost after washing it vigorously. I’m not sure if the plant can take that kind of abuse, but the poster said that mint is pretty hard to kill.

I tried to save the basil and overwinter it indoors, but as soon as it came into the house, it developed black spots on the leaves that spread throughout the plant and it died. This year, I’m going to try growing basil again. I’m hoping it will grow well enough for me to make some more pesto!

Of the two tomato plants, we loved brandywine the most, so this year I’m only planting brandywine tomatoes. Last year, I planted the two tomato plants too close together and I massively underestimated how big they would get, which made our little stakes completely useless. We did not get many tomatoes last year. This year, I will plant them farther apart and we'll use tomato cages to support them.

The horseradish is a root we bought at the local supermarket for our seder last spring. I saved a pieced of the root and buried it in a large planter and it thrived all throughout summer, the leaves only died when the winter got cold. I am planning to dig the root up this spring to use for this year’s seder. Since this winter has been rather cold, I have high hopes that this root will be extra pungent. I am planning to replant a part of the root again, same as last year.

Last year, my in-laws gifted us with the most delicious, fantastic garlic we’ve ever tasted. I saved a big bulb and planted 5 individual cloves last fall. They did sprout a little before the winter killed off the tops, but they are sprouting again now. From what I’ve read, I should be able to dig them out around mid-summer. I can save another big bulb and plant the cloves again this fall for another summer harvest. You can plant garlic in the spring for a fall harvest, but the bulbs won’t be as big.

In addition to the plants I mentioned I’ll be planting again this year, I’m planning to add a few things to the garden:

Lincoln peas

Kentucky Blue beans

German butterball potatoes

Bloomsdale Longstanding spinach

Little Gem Lettuce

Garlic Chives

Luffa

Angel Trumpet flowers

Petunias

Cover crops

The Kentucky Blue beans will be planted where the tomatoes were last year. I read that planting beans will restore some of the nitrogen used up by plants that are heavy feeders, such as tomatoes.

The peas will be planted after the garlic has been pulled. I think peas also replace nitrogen used up by previous plants, but really, I just wanted to try planting peas. Plus, I’d rather not leave the garlic patch bare for months at a time.

I bought a potato bag to grow the potatoes in and am hoping the potato plant doesn’t get too obnoxiously big like our tomato plants did. I read that they tend to spread out and some people have had success caging or staking them. I guess we’ll see how it goes. I haven't received the seed potatoes from my order yet.

The chives, Luffa and flowers are going into pots. The luffa is a vining plant that I’m planning to grow in a big pot and let it climb up our back porch. I am considering getting a trellis for the luffa, but I’m not even sure the old seeds I’ve got will germinate. The petunias have a weeping habit so I’m planning to put them in a window box in the front porch. It’s a bit shady there, so the flowers might end up not doing so well, but we’ll see. The trumpet flowers have an upright habit, so I’ll keep it in a pot and if it doesn’t like one location, I can move it to another.

The spinach and the lettuce doesn’t like full sun or high heat, so I’ll most likely be growing them in the front yard or indoors. I’m not growing very many as I’m not sure how successful I’ll be. Also, the seeds I have are very old and they might be dead. If that is the case, I'll dump the current batch and start again.

This year, I may try growing cover crops. Cover crops replace nitrogen used up in the soil, prevent soil erosion and smother weeds. They are usually planted after pulling up plants that have been “used up.” Cover crops need to be mowed down and tilled into the soil before they flower and re-seed themselves into the patch. They need to be tilled into the soil 2 to 3 weeks before new crops are planted.

So as you can see, I’m feeling rather ambitious this year. I’m rather excited about the project and can hardly wait for the weather to be warm enough for me to start working on the garden outside. Right now, the garden's a mess as we failed to clean it up after the plants died. So once it's warm enough, I'll be out there pulling and cutting up stuff and then adding fresh compost. Yay!