April 30th: Beans and Corn and Pumpkins, Oh My! (The Veggie Season Has Started)

05/01/23 • 41 min

Official recommendations from the Seattle Tilth’s Maritime Northwest Garden Guide: plant out your beans, pumpkins, and corn. Too late for onions. Too early for peppers and tomatoes.
The weather this week: Sunburn gardening this past weekend weekend, but this week is looking more like a typical Northwest spring. Great for planting! Evening temps are 45 degrees plus. Wednesday will be the hottest at 72 degrees but otherwise in the mid fifties to low sixties. This weekend looks like rain. Soil temperatures took a massive leap this last week - from mid 40’s to mid 60’s - ok to start planing some of the early summer items.

What’s popping:

Tulips
Rhodedendrons
Hostas
Strawberries
Lilac just starting, red flowering currant just starting

In the garden this week: What was planted: beans, corn, tatsoi, pumpkins, asad gardening fail, finished up the flower beds particularly with marigold and zinnia, look out for nasties (botanical and animal kind), start cucumbers and watermelons inside.
Uprising Seeds: https://uprisingorganics.com/
Adaptive Seeds: https://www.adaptiveseeds.com/
Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds: https://www.rareseeds.com/

The Dirt: Nitrogen fixing - what is it and how does it happen, best cover crops and when to plant.

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What’s popping:

Tulips
Rhodedendrons
Hostas
Strawberries
Lilac just starting, red flowering currant just starting

The Dirt: Nitrogen fixing - what is it and how does it happen, best cover crops and when to plant.

Previous Episode

April 23rd: It’s Still Cold! (Don’t Trust Your Garden Calendar)

Get some free seeds from me!
Official Recommendations from Seattle Tilth’s Maritime Northwest Garden Guide (https://tilthalliance.org/product/maritime-northwest-garden-guide-2/) and Oregon State University’s Garden Calendar (https://extension.oregonstate.edu/gardening/techniques/april-garden-calendar)
What’s popping in the garden this week: pansies, azaleas, red flowering currant, periwinkle, flowering fruit trees like plum and quince, camelia.
Work this week: Checking in on seed starts, set up my outdoor greenhouse, planted out nasturtium starts with a fun surprise, mystery tubers, and results of my overwinter bedding. Plastic greenhouse link - (this one is even cheaper than the one I got but the same style: https://www.amazon.com/HOMGARDEN-Greenhouse-Portable-Roll-Up-Outdoors/dp/B07CWNS81C/ref=asc_df_B07CWNS81C/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=309769305053&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=2228797719648447051&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9033483&hvtargid=pla-589776709630&th=1)
The Dirt: Is it really as cold as we complain it is? Why yes! Planting out and soil temperature, soil temperature charts from GreenCast (https://www.greencastonline.com/tools/soil-temperature), when to plant warm plants, dandelion trick from the Maritime gardening podcast (https://maritimegardening.com), germination range chart from Alabama A&M (https://www.aces.edu/blog/topics/lawn-garden/soil-temperature-conditions-for-vegetable-seed-germination/).

Next Episode

May 7th: Tackle Weeds NOW

Official gardening recommendations from OSU’s garden calendar: Manage weeds while they are small. Plant beans, broccoli, Brussel sprouts, cantaloupes, pickling cucumbers, kale, parsnips, corn, squash, tomatoes when soil temperature is consistently above 70 degrees for squash, melons, tomatoes, cukes, and eggplant. Lot of specific recommendations for pest management.

Soil temperatures: Soil temperatures have been in the high 50’s this past week.

Next week’s weather: mid 60’s to 80’s by the end of the week. No rain forecasted. Make sure to water, especially if you have seeds in the ground - soil should be consistently moist until germination. The rain gauge I use.

In the garden this week: Brassica transplants, Runner beans, Ginger, Stayed inside and made lilac jelly and nettle tea, weeded, joined a P-Patch.
Brassica transplants - broccoli (Waltham 29 variety) and cauliflower (Amazing variety), both from Rare Seeds.
Ginger from Spice World in Puyallup.
Video I used to learn about planting ginger.
Making nettle tea and lilac jelly.
P-Patch: city and county resources.

The Dirt: How to Weed an Overgrown bed. Hoe it and sift it OR cover it with woven plastic held with fabric staples.