Today was windy and a bit chillier than this past week, but I took some time  to plant the cold weather crops. Wednesday had been beautiful, sunny and warm, so I had turned the soil over in  the 4’x4′ beds with a pitchfork. There were a few stray parsnips and green onions to remove. Otherwise the soil looked great.

This year I decided to only plant what we really like to eat and what “makes sense.” Even though we use the square foot gardening method, real estate in the 4’x4′ raised beds is precious. There will be no carrots this season since we don’t eat them often enough to give them a 70 day stay in the bed. We also are passing on beets. All our cold crops are direct sown into the soil as seeds.

2015 Spring Cold Crop Lineup

• Bloomsdale Long Standing Spinach
• French Breakfast Radish
• Baby Bok Choy Pak Choi
• All Season Butterhead Mix Lettuce
• Hollow Crown Parsnips
• Oregon Sugar Pod II Peas
• Jolly Jester Marigold

Tee-Peas

Last year we attempted to grow sugar peas up a bamboo tee-pee set atop a large planter. It was quite successful, so we’ll be doing that again this year. In a couple of weeks I’ll put together the container with snow pea seeds with the addition of pansies. This was a fun container idea shared by Rebecca Finneran, aptly named a P-Pot, at this year’s Smart Gardening conference. I’ll also assemble some smaller containers for Bright Lights Swiss Chard and Burgundy Okra.