Gardening blog

With the new house and new yard, one of my goals for 2008 is to grow at least 10% of our own food, as well as grow food to preserve over the winter. It seems so early to start thinking about gardening, especially with snow on the ground and below 0 temperatures only a few days ago, but in less than 2 months all those indoor-started seeds need to be the dirt so I have to get going! This blog is mostly, at this point, for my own sake, so posts may be fragmented and irregular at times.

I am in zone 5...5a, technically, with an average low temperature of -20 F (and why do I live here again?) and our average last frost date is April 28th...even though we get snow after that on a regular basis. First frost is Oct 16th.

We already have garlic in the ground since mid-November, a 4'x5' bed with about 30-40 cloves planted, then mulched with leaves (then unmulched thanks to a "helpful" neighbor but remulched again) and soon (today) to be mulched again with a layer of rabbit/guinea pig litter/hay. The plan this year is to do a majority of our gardening in containers while getting the front yard in shape and starting to work on the back yard. The back yard is heavily mulched in red-dyed cedar chips, is quite overgrown from neglect and is shaded by a couple of trees, one of which will be removed sometime this year as it is very close to the house. Needless to say, the back will take some work before it is ready for edible gardening, but we plan to be in this house for 10 plus years so we have time. I would like the front yard to be heavily planted (read: no lawn!) using edible landscaping techniques.

Veggies/fruits we'd like to grow this year:
-Several varieties of tomatoes, peppers and eggplants.
-swiss chard
-kale
-lettuces/other salad greens (mache, arugula)
-some other cooking greens
-zucchini/summer squash
-cucumber
-herbs
-garlic
-green onions
-blueberries
-strawberries

There will most likely be more. I'd love to try broccoli/cauliflower, possibly okra (for the lizards, not me, ugh, slime!), possibly spinach, cabbage, and kohlrabi. And who knows what else Katie will talk me into? Off to look at more seed catalogues...