Spring Sprouts

It has only been a couple of weeks since the peas and onion sets went into the dirt and already they are making progress.  They both took a little over a week to germinate and I expect them to really take off in the warmer weather we are expecting in the upcoming days.

The onion seeds I planted are looking like a no show at this point, but I will give them one more week before I buy more sets to plant in that bed.  I was really hoping that onions from seed would work for me this year, but it does not seem to be in the cards for this year's garden.  I may try planting seed again in the fall to see if I can make my own sets for next year.  I have read that you can plant the seeds very close together and they stay small and can be saved for sets the following spring if you plant them near the end of summer.



 The carrots are starting to make an appearance and I am finding plenty of dill volunteers coming up from last year's crop too.  Dill is one of those things that you only need to plant once and they will keep reseeding themselves year after year if you simply neglect them.  They also have a small root system and feathery growth habit, so they generally don't intrude much on other crops.  They are something that I will allow to be a weed in any of my garden beds since they don't do much harm and I use it for seasoning many things in my kitchen.

If I look really closely, I think I have seen the first of the lettuce sprouts and a handful of turnip sprouts coming up.  The turnips in this particular bed seem to be having a problem with flea beetles, so this crop may end up being a wash this time around.  I am hoping the lettuce comes in quickly so I can add more variety to my salads, and right now the spinach is producing enough to feed me a small salad nearly every day.  Once the days start to get hotter my salad days will be numbered as these crops tend to bolt in the heat.  I will try to stagger some lettuce plantings to extend their season a little while, but salad generally won't be on the menu once the heat of summer hits.

The potatoes have just begun to show themselves in the last few days.  The purples were the first to make an appearance followed by the reds and then the yellows.  From the looks of things I will have a bumper crop of potatoes again this year as long as I can keep up with watering.

Week by week the variety of things that I have growing in my garden will be increasing.  I look forward to eating my way through the growing season simply basing my diet on what I have available to me.  I am only limited by what I choose to grow and I like to grow a lot of different crops that are ready at different points in the season.  I can extend my harvest by freezing, canning or dehydrating, though none of those things compare to fresh picked fruits or veggies.  I will eat as much as I can straight out of the garden and then do what I can to preserve the rest for winter.