Planning time

Sure, it's a wee bit chilly still, and half my winter tasks are unfinished. Who am I kidding, they're unstarted. But now is the time when an old man's fancy turns to thoughts of... see catalogs. Really, I don't think we'd be too badly off if we started the peppers under lights in the basement right about now.

And it's never too soon to go over the problems we had last year and see if we can work around them. Look out squirrels...

Cold

It's cold out. Snow.

I planted a load more garlic very late in the season, I'm not sure if it'll even come up. So far nothing. I mulched all the garlic beds with leaves ground up in the lawn mower. Hopefully that organic blankey will keep them warm until the spring. I put the leaf mulch on late too, they weren't looking too happy.

Preliminary planning for next season is underway. Current plans:

• Peas - sugar snap. Maybe plant them a bit earlier this time, maybe pull them a bit sooner.
• Zucchini - Maye get a mildew resistant variety. Definitely do more to fend off squash borers. Maybe mesh row covers.
• Tomatoes - Need to set up a chicken wire cage for them. Need zero access for squirrels, easy access for us. Thinking different colored cherry tomatoes featuring prominently.
• Peppers - We have maybe ten varieties already. Going to go big with buckets this time, they did well in containers even when overcrowded last year.
• Corn - Need a cage to keep out evil squirrels.
• Pumpkins - A few varieties.
• Beans - They did great last year, we have a lot of saved seeds.
• Cucumbers - Loads of pickles this year hopefully. Maybe relish!
• Winter Squash - A few varieites. Butternut did pretty well.
• Out this time: Carrots (did poorly), parsnips (did poorly), onions (also poorly), barley (too lazy to harvest and store it properly), cabbage (did poorly), pole beans (were nowhere near as good as bush beans, and didn't do as well). Well, not all of them are out, but probably won't do near as much of any of them.