Crystal Madrilejos

Design & Creative


It’s that time of year again! We had a little break from garden planning during the holiday, but now the seed catalogs are out and the mad dash has begun to be ready to hit the ground running once the weather starts to warm up. I know, I know it’s still January and we have many cold days still to endure before the ground is even close to ready. But it sneaks up on us every year! We always miss those cool early days that are perfect for greens, lettuce and spinach and I am determined to get as much growing time as possible this year. We got smart after last growing season and started prepping the garden in the Fall before it turned cold, but more on that later since that’s a bigger post. Super excited to share all the new garden plans.

But for now, here’s a list of what we’re planning on growing (all our seeds are from High Mowing Organic Seeds this year):

Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans – We’ve done bush and pole beans in the past, but I prefer the pole varieties. Not only am I sucker for any plants that climb (space savers and they are beautiful to look at) but I like the fact that we don’t have to harvest all at once. You get just the right amount of beans over a longer period of time.

Green Arrow Peas – My nieces loved eating peas right off the vine. It’s like finding little treasures in all those pods. I’m hoping Quil enjoys them just as much.

Danvers 126 Carrots – Another fun veggie for the kids to harvest. Root veggies are Andrew’s favorite to harvest. Again, it’s like finding treasure!

San Marzano Paste Tomato – We aren’t fans of huge tomatoes. They are too watery and seedy and aren’t that great for making pizza sauce either. Which is the main reason we grow them. San Marzano’s are the best for sauces and such because they have a lot of pulp (aka, the good stuff.)

Greens / Lettuce
We eat a lot of greens and we like to share them with our friends and family, so we always grow a ton. I may try to start some indoors this year to take advantage of their tolerance to cooler temps. And definitely going to space out the timing of our plantings so we don’t end up with a ton of lettuce all at once that becomes impossible to consume. In the past, we’ve literally had so much that even if we ate salads every single day for every meal, we still wouldn’t have made a dent.
Lacinato Dinosaur Kale
Outredgeous Lettuce
Parris Island Lettuce
Red Salad Bowl Lettuce
Salad Bowl Lettuce
Waldmann’s Dark Green Lettuce
Green Towers Lettuce
Shanghai Green Baby Pac Choy
Renegade F1 Hybrid Spinach
Grazia Arugula
Mirlo Lettuce

Squash / Melons
We stopped growing Summer squash a couple years ago. Mainly because they took up so much room and we didn’t eat that much of it. It’s unfortunate because it’s extremely productive and easy to grow. If you aren’t vigilant about picking them, you’ll end up with zucchini’s the size of your leg. And that’s just too much zucchini. No point in using up so much space. Instead, we save the space for Winter squash because they store well and we can eat them all winter long.
Sweet REBA Acorn Squash
Waltham Butternut Squash
Cinderella Pumpkin
Sugar Baby Watermelon
(Those last two were our “just for funs” this year.)

Potatoes
This year we got our seed potatoes from the Maine Potato Lady. We made sure to get our order in before Jan. 28th so we could be part of the March shipment. Potatoes are another favorite to harvest. Growing is sort of a pain because you have to build the soil up as the plant grows, but it’s worth it in the end.
Organic Banana
Organic French Fingerling
Organic Chieftan
Organic Daisy Gold
Organic Red Maria


Flowers

We haven’t done flowers much in the past. In previous years, we just didn’t want to expend any more time or energy tending to things that we couldn’t eat. But this year, we’ve finally branched out. No pun intended.

Sea Shells Mix Cosmos
Nasturtium Mix (You can eat these, btw.)
We have more perennials that went into the ground in the fall. All of them from family and friends (thanks Mom and Barb!) Looking forward to seeing them sprout back up come spring. My Mom also got me a little fig tree for my birthday, that is chilling in a dormant state in Andrew’s parents garage. Excited to bring it out to meet its other plant friends this year.
Here’s a photo of Andrew and Quil getting the new beds ready this past fall.
Here are past posts, if you’re interested in reading more about our gardening adventures.
More to come, for sure.
xo,
c.