Planting Dates

As I was working all day in the garden yesterday, when I planted onions and carrots, I remembered that I had not posted the planting dates.

I like to plant onions, carrots, and lettuce earlier than this (February 19th), but oh well, that's just the way it goes.
Potatoes I like to plant between the Full Moon in February and President's Day.  This year, that date range is the 18th - 22nd.

Strawberries will be planted March 1-8.
Corn, Beans, and Cucumbers will be planted sometime between March 20 and May 1.  According to my 2010 gardening journal, I planted these on April 4th.  It just sort of depends on the weather at the time.
Shortly after the Corn, Beans and Cucs, the Tomatoes will be planted between March 25th and April 15th.
Next, the Peppers will be planted sometime in the month of April, followed by the Southern Peas being planted between April 1 and May 20th.
Cantaleoupe, a big letdown from last year, will be planted sometime between April 5th and May 1st.
I don't have a schedule made up for the Fall planting dates, but I plan on getting one together soon.  There are many vegetables that grow much better in the fall, here in Texas, thanks to the incredibly hot summer ending.

Some other gardening notes:

On the lasagna method, which I spoke about a couple posts ago, I have run across one negative...well maybe.  Most tillers (at least the one I use, for sure) cannot till through all the hay, so you'll have to rake the hay out of the way, till, then rake it back on top.  It kind of stinks, because I wanted to till the hay into the ground.  But I guess having a thick layer of hay mulch will be pretty awesome.

Completely unintentionally, I "planted" a cover crop over a portion of my garden last fall.  What actually happened was, I put down wheat straw, and the wheat seeds germinated, then grew :-)  So after it started to grow, I thought "why not, cover crops are good."  Well now that it's time to till it all in, I sorta wish I had a horse and plow, because this stuff is FIRMLY rooted into the ground.  That's the point of wheat as a cover crop, but probably is not realistic for such a small scale garden.  It took a long time to get it uprooted, and that was only about 20 square feet of wheat grass.  Notice this clump of wheat grass - the root structure is incredibly thick and intertwined, and (you'll just have to trust me on this) is very hard to separate.

Planting Onion plants

I thought I'd write up a little how-to on how I planted the onion plants I bought ($0.89/60, not bad!).

First, I tilled the few square feet where the onions were to be planted.  I flattened the ground so digging furrows would be easier.  I then used my hoe, or my hands, to dig a furrow.

I took a handful of onion plants and started setting them in the furrow about 4-6" apart.

I then simply pushed the soil back onto the onions, which are now at about 1-2" deep in the furrow.  I then compacted the ground around the stalks, to provide good root-to-soil contact.  I did not do that last year, and I believe that with this tip, I should have a better production rate.

 Well, that about sums up everything from this weekend.  What a beautiful weekend it was, and it was great to soak up the sun outside.  I can't wait to see what this year's garden holds in store!