Fabulous Books

A few fabulous books that I have in my library include "When Perennials Bloom" by Tomasz Anisko, curator at Longwoods Gardens, "Bulbs in the Basement Geraniums on the Windowsill" by Alice and Brian McGowan, and "Bloom-Again Orchids" by Judy White.  What books do you recommend?

Planting very early spring crops from seed

Square foot gardening - early spring crops

I found "Square Foot Gardening" by Mel Bartholomew an interesting way to design a vegetable garden.  Page 90 begins listing the outdoor planting schedule, i.e. plant spinach seeds five weeks before last spring frost.   In western New York our last spring frost is May 15th.  Five weeks before May 15th is April 10th.  Get your cold weather crops planted ASAP!

We set our garden up using two square feet in our raised bed.  Using a few nails and twine we established the pattern but soon we found that we could "eyeball" the pattern and therefore didn't identify the pattern for every two feet.  We used cedar shims to identify the plants, record the date planted and the harvest date.  I read somewhere about planting peas within sections of paper towel rolls.  The cold weather crops are planted and in a few weeks we will enjoy spinach, arugula, pak choi, lettuce and kale.