Last weekend we began putting in the root vegetable seeds – carrots, parsnips, and for the first time, beets. We decided to grow an heirloom mixture of seeds based on my experimentation with fresh beets in cooking this winter – our local grocer sells beets already peeled, but not canned. Before starting the seeds in the ground (about 4 weeks before the last date of frost) they need to be soaked for 8-24 hours:
They were sown, along with the carrot and parsnip seeds, in last year’s tomato bed. Because we built a new bed this year, we rotated all the potatoes and garlic, previously grown in bed #3, into that bed. Nothing’s changed from last year’s planting system – dig hole, drop potato, cover, water sparsely. See:
What is new this year is my selection of Adirondack blue potatoes. Unlike the royal purple beans we grew last year, which turned green when cooked, Adirondack blues are supposed to retain their color when cooked. If this is true, I might turn the entire batch into potato chips.
Meanwhile, the seedlings are doing nicely:
 |
| Geraniums in back, coleus in front |
 |
| Eggplants – Bride and Dusky Purple |
 |
| Peppers – Green, Jalepeno & Banana |
 |
| Tomatoes |
 |
| Onions |
Of course, the entire operation takes up a bit of room downstairs:
