Chronicles of the Long Shot Farm

Luckily we got the following seeds planted before the rainy weekend:

• Detroit Dark Red – red beets
• Bloomsdale – spinach
• Green Ice – lettuce
• Danvers 126 – carrots
• Hollow Crown – parsnips
• Basic “onion sets” (around 250 bulbs)

Each row in our garden is approximately 150 feet (about 45 m) long, the above seeds covered two rows, with the onion sets and carrots covering the most, then red beets and parsnips.  We planted only 1/4 row of lettuce and spinach.

Our garden as of this evening:

• 48 broccoli plants – Emerald Jewel
• 48 cabbage plants – Hercules, OS Cross  (matures in 82 days, avg, 10 lbs)
• 300 Candy onion plants
• ~ 40 lbs of red potatoes – Pontiac
• ~ 40 lbs of Yukon Gold potatoes

All the plants are in the plastic covered beds, 3 rows of potatoes are in traditional rows, that were hilled up, one row of potatoes was planted in plastic – just to see how it would work.

We rented a plastic mulch layer attachment this morning and bought a roll of plastic mulch.  In less than 2 hours, Jeff had 10 rows made…and this was the first time we ever used an attachment like this.  We still had drip irrigation line left from last year and this attachment made raised bed, laid down the irrigation line, covered everything with plastic mulch and scooped up some dirt around the edges to make sure the plastic cover is secure.  We also bought a tool to make holes in the plastic to drop seeds –  thinking of squash, pumpkins and cucumbers.  Mostly though we are planning to use these mulched beds for plants:  tomatoes, peppers, sweet potatoes, onions and melons.  It should hold back a lot of weeds and reduce water usage from the irrigation.