Planted the Garden Today… Coronavirus Day 17

So here’s the thing… The thing is… The thing… Okay okay, the thing is… I might have planted my garden too soon. I might have gotten so dang excited I couldn’t stand myself and jumped the gun.

I live in Zone 6B. That is temperatures -5-0˚F on the cold side. A couple of years ago we got colder than that… but typically this is pretty accurate for SW Missouri.

My Grandma and my dad told me that my Great Grandpa said we needed to have our potatoes planted in the ground by St. Patrick’s Day (March 17). That didn’t happen since I didn’t start my garden digging until March 21st. Because of the country lockdown, I haven’t been many places. Lowes and a local farm store. The farm store was the only place that had potato starts. I didn’t get mine in time. I guess because everyone is home with nothing to do… everyone is starting a garden. Sigh!

But I did a little research to see if there is anything I should have planted. Turns out as long as you have daytime temps of 56˚F or more you can plant corn, celery, peppers, tomatoes, watermelons, squash, and beans. That’s what the internet tells us. These plants tend to like cooler weather… except maybe the watermelon and the corn… I’m not sure I agree with the internet on those.

I looked at the back of the package. We’re at March 30th so I figured that’s close enough to April. A lot of the packages said April so I went for it.

I wasn’t ready to plant the corn yet so I went for the Cauliflower, Broccoli, and Brussels Sprouts. 

I drew myself a map so I would remember where I planted what. My mom later told me that my grandma used to tape the packages the seeds came onto a stick and put them at the beginning of the row so she’d remember. Good tip mom, good tip!

Another good tip… make yourself notes throughout the year of things that work, things that don’t, places you got seeds or plants, what worked, what didn’t, etc. It’s helpful and handy for next year.

This garden has been fun for my little and me both. It has given us a chance to get out of the house and spend quality time together. Except while I was planting this stuff (with her help) her dad went down the road to my parents and she was ready to drop me like hotcakes. Except… dad was just running down and coming right back. She got mad. It was a whole ordeal. And I became the bad guy in all of this.

I also got my hands on some Cherry Trees. At our old house, we had a huge Cherry Tree. I knew I wanted another Cherry tree! We finally found these at the feed store (different from the farm store). They were $15/tree. I bought 2.

I went ahead and got the premium tree ring to try and keep weeds/grass from growing around the base of the tree. I’ll keep you posted on how I feel about these. I’ve never tried them. Maybe I should have just used regular mulch… we’ll see.