Garden & Landscaping plans for Spring...

February is a good month. I rip January off my calendar with great relish and anticipation. Here in Sunset Zone 14, otherwise known as Zone 9, bed preparation for cool weather Spring vegetables gets under way. I have a couple of organic garden beds prepared already but my big project heading in to Spring is a bed that runs the length of the driveway in front of my house. I have plans to put terraced raised beds along its' length as my driveway is basically on a hill. These beds will not be used for cool weather vegetables (at least not this year) but will be prepared lovingly for a robust Summer vegetable garden. The bed is a total of 64 square feet and trust me when I say that every square inch will be utilized. I will be able to supply my family of four with all of our vegetables for at least 6 months out of this one bed. Once completed, I will mix in compost, a healthy dose of bat guano, sea kelp and earthworm castings - the holy trinity. I will have my first crimson heirloom tomatoes in Early July. Good stuff. Until then, in other beds, there will be lettuce of every sort (I think I bought 8 heirloom organic varieties this year) spinach, carrots, swiss chard, cabbage, broccoli, all from my favoritist seed company in the world, These cool weather vegetables will actually be started by seed - indoors under lights at the end of February. They will be set out with provisional cloches in just a few weeks. I have a very nice bed in front of my house and a HUGE raised bed in the back, 20 ft. x 10 ft., that I've used for cool weather crops. I'm also composting like crazy and practicing crop rotation so that the soil will suffer less fatigue and the plants less disease.