I have almost entirely abandoned gardening, or even the most basic maintenance. But now that it is seed starting time, I'm going to give it another shot.
I scrounged up some of the six-packs, and a lot of them still had dried out plugs of seed starting mix. Strangely I can only find 6 of the 10 I know I have, plus the crappy one from the nursery. I also had some worm castings that had been sitting in a bin for about a year, and pulled some potting soil out of the dead pepper plant. I layered the potting soil and worm castings in the bottom 2/3 of the cells, and topped with the nice light seed starting mix.
I started the Rudbeckia, because that's the thing that needs to most time to get going. Last year I did 3 six packs (18) and they were all great. This year I've done 4. (24 plants!) Last year I put them all in the weird sidewalk bed, and they looked pretty nice, although they didn't grow that big. They were quite productive though; there were plenty of flowers every day for a period of a few months. Totally worth the effort.
I'm also going to buy a pack of a different Rudbeckia from Burpee. My old version is called Indian Summer, and this is called Tiger Eye. I used up all the old seeds today, even though I think I ended up with 4 or 5 seeds per cell. It's not like I'm going to keep them for another year. This new Rudbeckia only comes with 25 seeds, compared to 100 seeds for about the same price. I never know if that means anything, other than maybe the seeds are harder to collect or the plant produces less seed. These are also supposed to be a little shorter. So when I get those seeds I will get them started right away. Maybe I will even do one seed per cell to maximize the number of plants I get. How cool would it be if I had 40 or so plants to fill out that space?
So now I am thinking about what flowers I would like to have in the summer. Those two Rudbeckias will be great and may produce even more than I can fit in the Sidewalk Bed. I also want to try to do more sunflowers. Last year I think I tried to get too clever and I started some sunflowers inside and tried to transplant them. Looks like they did not enjoy that. So when I go to transplant the Rudbeckia outside, in late April, that would be a good time to put in lots of sunflower seeds. Last year's Rudbeckia is said to get more than 3 feet tall- I didn't see it get quite that tall, although it does have a bushy habit and then tall stems stick up higher with the flowers. The new Rudbeckia will be more like 1 1/2 to 2 feet tall. So that could create some nice layering. Then I would hopefully have several of the Sunflowers in there which will be around 3 feet tall. I'll need something in the front that is shorter. I have an unopened pack of the Thumbelina Zinnias, which say they are 6 inches tall, but I bet it's taller. Those are a mix of colors- yellow orange, pink, red and white. I was thinking of making that bed only yellow, orange and red. If I get these started early enough, I might be able to tell which is which. But if I have a mix of those colors that would also be fine.
If those short Zinnias do well, I would also put them in the side bed, or in the front bed. Basically I just have to have a whole lot of whatever I'm doing. I don't know if there are any other annual flowers that I would want to start now to use in the other beds. The front bed has the perennial Rudbeckia, and I'm sure those are good, and the Echinacea which I totally love. And there's a Clematis in there somewhere, although I don't have much faith that it will come back. I'll probably end up just buying a flat of Vincas or something.
In the side bed... oh my god those roses. They are totally out of control and I really need to prune them back, like way back. That would of course be in the spring when they start growing again. With all that pink, the best thing to put in with them would probably be those pink vincas. (Pink-ahs?) If I somehow manage to distinguish between the different colors of the short Zinnias, I would put the pink and white in the side bed and the yellow, orange and red in the sidewalk bed.
I am also ordering some Coleus, which I will start as soon as I get it. Those are obviously for the patio bed. I might not go so hard on Coleus this year, because they grow so lush that they swamp out the Begonias.
Anyway, edibles! I also started 2 six-packs of Kale today. I'm still debating about starting some Radicchio. I know it takes a while to mature, so I'm thinking if I start them now, I can transplant them outside in 2 months and a month or so after that they might be ok to harvest. But basically I think they have to come out before the end of April. That allows me more than 90 days. I'm skeptical, but I'll only do one six-pack.
I will start the tomatoes in 2 weeks, I think. I'm going to do the same thing, the same 4 inch pots, 5 each of the 3 varieties. I also want to do some Romaine, and Swiss Chard, which will be started inside in February. Next would be Basil, and maybe Cilantro is worth a try. Oh, and the baby Bok Choy! I love that stuff. I will do some leaf lettuce in the gutter garden, including Arugula. And last year I had some success doing the Radishes in the window box. I might do them in a container instead, and put something more ornamental in the window box. Maybe Pansies. Whatever.
I'm going to put the Tomatoes into the smaller raised bed this year. It's been two years in the other one, so it's probably time to rotate, and I think that's probably got a little more sun. So the other bed will be available for all the spring greens and lettuce, and hopefully lots of Swiss Chard in the summer. And of course that is a good area for herbs. I'm hopeful the Rosemary will make it through the winter.
