The Modern Victory Garden

I was previously going to wait until the plants emerged from the seeding process before sharing with you my inaugural use of the new planting jig.   However, that may take quite a while given it is early spring and the soil is cool (which will slow the germination process down considerably) so rather than wait, I have decided that I will just give you an update later on how things progress with the seedlings and give you the initial report now.               

Last Saturday, I gave up on my attempted salvage operation on the bed of overwintered spinach.   I had failed to get it covered with a grow tunnel prior to our deep freeze in December and then (to add insult to significant injury!) the marauding rabbit ate most of what remained of the feeble plants.   My salvage attempt included covering it with a grow tunnel and giving it a drink of fish emulsion tea.   Last weekend, I came to the conclusion that the few plants that had revived were not worth the effort to keep nursing along.   I pulled all of the plants out and composted them.   The grow tunnel cover had definitely warmed up the soil in that particular section of garden though, and it seemed like a great opportunity to just get a very early jump on the sowing of the spring spinach crop.   On Saturday, I did the bed prep necessary to get this 4-foot by 12-foot section of bed ready for direct seeding.   I pulled the grow tunnel cover off long enough to do the re-mineralization (greensand and rock phosphate) and to broadcast the bed area with organic all purpose fertilizer. I used a hoe to cultivate it all into the top six inches of soil - removing any remaining plants and weeds as I went.   Before putting the grow tunnel cover back on, I raked and watered the bed.   Since it has been covered for over a month now, it was getting dried out.   The next day I came back and checked the soil temperature in the bed and it was almost 50 degrees at about 10 am.   I needed it to be at least 45 degrees before I would consider planting it up with spinach.   

So Sunday morning, I did a final smoothing and raking process and used one of my new planting jigs (the four inch spaced one) to plant the spring spinach patch.   It is always important when planting seeds directly in the garden to get the seedbed as smooth and clod free as possible.                                

Before getting underway with the seeding, I brought out the planting jig and my regular 2-foot by 2-foot plywood board that I use for firming in seeds when doing a block planting process.                                            

I used the planting jig to then press out 2-foot by 2-foot sections of 4 inch spaced planting holes down the bed on both sides – 9 spaces per square foot.   Each jig impression provided 36 seeding holes and there were 12 of them to cover the entire surface of the 4-foot by 12-foot section of bed, which calculates out to 432 individual planting holes!                                      

I then just placed a seed (sometimes two) in each hole.   Once the seeds were in the jig holes, I smoothed the surface slightly with my gloved hand to fill in the top of the holes and then used the 2-foot by 2-foot piece of plywood to firm down and ensure good seed contact with the soil.                            

The last step was to water the bed well using warm water and then putting the grow tunnel cover back on.                                                  

It took me just a half hour to plant up this entire bed and the jig worked beautifully.   My only concern is that with smaller seeds (like these spinach seeds) I may be ending up with the seed too deep.   I will have to be particularly light handed with the really small seeds like carrots when making the impressions in the soil.   All in all though, I am very happy with this design. 

So there you have it!   The next candidate planting for the new jigs will be the big pea patch for 2010.   The soil temp is good enough to plant right now, and the forecast is for a really beautiful weekend coming up so I probably get this underway soon too - using the 2 inch spaced planter for that one.   Things are really getting underway now!