First Outdoor Planting

Today I planted the first seeds of bush beans and corn into the garden.  It was a cloudy day but it still was warm enough to get them into the ground.  I didn’t plant an entire row instead I just planted the first set of corn and with some extra room I planted some bush beans.

I wasn’t planning on growing bush beans because I wasn’t sure I would have extra room.  What I did was plant them at the end of where my pole beans are going to go because there is plenty of room in this area.  Basically where the pole beans end are where the bush beans will begin.

Corn on the other hand is a different story.  Last season I planted two rows of corn at the same time and was overwhelmed with the ripening of corn at the same time.  Most of the corn either became too tough because there was just so much and I couldn’t eat all of it fast enough.

Here are the two short rows that I used for corn.

This time I decided that I am going to be planting them in sets.  Since I have about two rows of thirty feet I will plant them in sets of five feet rows.  That means every single week I will plant corn in five foot rows until the entire row is filled with corn stalks.  This way they will not all ripe at the same exact time and I can eat them at a much slower pace.

Instead of using corn from the store I have been using an heirloom corn that I have been saving for the past few years.  It has yielded many ears of corn over the years and has been a great addition to the garden.  I just left one ear on the stalk for about a month and then cut it off and placed it in the refrigerator until today.  You only have to sacrifice one ear because they have plenty of seeds for two thirty foot rows.  You should even have some extra as well.

This is what it looks like

I also planted some more flowers inside since all my plants are now outside enjoying the sun.  I am taking advantage of my florescent lights and growing as much as I can before putting them away for the season.  When summer is here I can then just start growing them directly in the garden or place the containers in the sun.  For now sunlight is still scarce and this is when most of the rain comes.

I decided on planting statice, calendula, calendula snow, alyssum, queen annes lace, and amaranthus into large plastic containers.  The more flowers I have the more insects that I can attract to the garden.  I like to grow as much as I can because I can always place them in between rows in the garden.