Karen's Garden Delights Journal
3rd week of April 2011

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This was yet another week of cool temps and plenty of rain. Everyone is starting to notice that spring is very slow in arriving this year and some market gardeners/farmers are very concerned. The windows of opportunity for working in the soil have been extremely limited since it seems to rain or be very wet 75% of the time. During one of the “dry” periods this week we planted like mad (onions, fava beans, fennel, spinach, chard, kale) wearing our winter coats and hats which just isn't as fun as planting barefoot in t-shirts! We ran out of time to start planting the potatoes which are starting to sprout more than I like. Some of the spring crops like peas, radishes and spinach are starting to appear and I am very thankful for our cold frames and low tunnels. The past two weeks I have picked at least 16 salad bags for customers all from fall plantings and the spring plantings under plastic are moving along much faster than if they were out in the open. Pictured are the garlic scallions that were under the 8’x12’ mobile hoop house. Since they were growing well, we moved the structure to cover a bed of lettuce and spinach with hopes that I won't need to turn away salad requests like I did this week.

Inside plants are flourishing and I am actually glad I was a little behind in starting my main crop peppers and tomatoes since the ground will surely be late in warming up to plant them outdoors this year. I will probably make more use of waterwalls than in past years to hasten along tomatoes. With several upcoming talks involved salad, I am preparing numerous flats of lettuce mix and greens mix to sell at those venues. That is a job that can be done on the porch even while it is raining and I love the colorful look of lettuce mix ready to sell. Thankfully, most of the recent speaking events have fallen on rainy days which means I don't miss precious outdoor time and it also makes the audience more receptive to anything that looks, smells and tastes like spring!

An annual spring event that my daughter and I enjoy is a plant exchange we attend in Dalton. A group of about thirty ladies come together with pots, bags and boxes of flowers, herbs, bushes and more and everyone goes home with new plants. I dug up several abundant herbs like lovage, garlic chives and mountain mint plus grabbed some greenhouse extras like parsley and pumpkin tree. We also dug two pots of our Kings Crown fritillary which proved to be very popular at the exchange. They are a dramatic spring flower planted by my grandmother or perhaps great grandmother and I keep dividing them so we have enough to share. Of course, we returned from the exchange with quite a stash ourselves, I chose things that would be helpful for wedding bouquets and our daughter has plans for a bird and butterfly garden. We had a good time clearing weeds and quack grass from a garden corner to plant the lilies, columbine and violas we garnered and of course just as we finished, it started to rain.