Spring Planting -- Phase 1, Planning

So the garden's ready and now it's time to figure out what I want to plant, when it should be planted, and whether it should be seeds or seedlings (i.e. small plants).  The best place to find this infomration is to go to the NC Coooperative Extension Service.  The Cooperative Extension rocks -- every state has one, and its a great source for any and all horticulture and gardening questions.  Not only does every state have one, but every county in every state has one as well.  If you're not a North Carolinian just google your state and cooperative extension.  Should come up.

Anyway, on the NC CES website, I found a great publication on how to start a garden with a planting guide for a plethora of vegetables (http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/hil/ag-06.html).  An early start on gardening is a must: there are quite a few vegetables that like cool weather (i.e. spring).  In March, you can plant the following seeds: cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, greens (lettuce, spinach, kale, arugula, etc.), onions, root veggies (rutebaga, radishes, beets, turnips), peas, and carrots.  April veggies include green beans, squash, corn, pumpkins, tomatoes, and watermelon.   Most of the planting dates for these vegetables is actually mid-March and mid-April.  I also would recommend buying seedlings of tomatoes.  Unless you have a space to start from seed inside (which needs to be done in mid-February), it may be too late to plant seeds in the spring.

Okay.. if I could, I would grow.... all of them.  But, as timy a space I have, I can only do a few.  So I've chosen the veggies that we consume the most. I figure, at about $2 per lettuce bunch and $2 per packet of seeds, I'd have to make ahead economically, given the garden is productive (fingers crossed!).  For March, I decided to plant lettuce (2 types), spinach, arugula, sugar snap peas, and onions.  April will be tomatoes and maybe squash or green beans. 

I went to Ace Hardware, and bought seeds for the March vegetables. For some reason, I thought I had cucumbers on the list (even though the list was in my bag), so I bought those too.  And my total was.... $10! nice.

As  soon as I got home, I changed into gardenining close and got started.