Planting Day!

[Mauldintiger]

Took the afternoon of today and planted broccoli, potatoes, lettuce, spinach, cabbage and some kale seeds. I sheet mulch organically and no till. So, I pulled back the mulch and put the seed potatoes on the ground, added some vermicompost and straw. Will let you know how it turns out!

 

[catjac1975]

Took the afternoon of today and planted broccoli, potatoes, lettuce, spinach, cabbage and some kale seeds. I sheet mulch organically and no till. So, I pulled back the mulch and put the seed potatoes on the ground, added some vermicompost and straw. Will let you know how it turns out!

Still winter here!

 

[digitS']

Direct-sowing that seed in the garden, Mauldintiger?

I've even done that here and in turned out okay with the broccoli and cabbage. It was long ago but I remember that I had plenty of late cabbage and the large, sprouting broccoli.

The guidance I was following said that the cabbage "did better" with transplanting. So, I had a small fertile bed for starting the seed. Then, the small plants were moved out into other beds for the summer.

Was that transplanting unnecessary?

Steve

 

[Mauldintiger]

Lettuce, spinach, broccoli, and cabbage were plants, but I did direct seed a lettuce mix Sunday, it's already sprouting. Potting soil on top of Strawbale to keep it away from a pesky rabbit!

 

[journey11]

Took the afternoon of today and planted broccoli, potatoes, lettuce, spinach, cabbage and some kale seeds. I sheet mulch organically and no till. So, I pulled back the mulch and put the seed potatoes on the ground, added some vermicompost and straw. Will let you know how it turns out!

I grew my potatoes like this one year (no dig, hilling with straw too) and got lots of huge, beautiful potatoes. Unfortunately the voles had a heyday under there and took bites out of most of my potatoes. DD and I counted a dozen voles come shooting out of the patch like Roman candles as we dug our potatoes. This method works great to produce some very nice potatoes, but I just thought I should warn you about the voles. I have 4 cats running around here now. Somehow I think the outcome may have been different if I had had cats at the time.

 

[digitS']

@journey11 , I've said something about this before but your experience was also mine.

Rain-spoiled alfalfa made wonderful compost but it also must have been a great home for the voles.

They still show up in my garden. Sometimes, I don't know that voles are hiding under tomato plants (a favorite location), until a coyote digs them out. Under the hay mulch in the potato patch that year, they had a city.

Steve

 

[so lucky]

They really play havoc in my yard and garden, too. And I didn't have a good crop of potatoes when I used straw as deep mulch. They stayed damp enough, but just didn't grow like I had envisioned. Don't remember particularly having problems with voles in the potatoes, but I bet the population has really climbed over the last couple of years.
I hope you have good luck, Mauldintiger, and prove that all those you-tube videos are true!

 

[Mauldintiger]

I had to google voles to see what they were! I have heard you guys talking about them, but never thought to look them up. I don't think we have them here, unless they are the same as our field mice. Planted potatoes in the dirt last year, and did not have a very good crop so trying something different this year.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Voles are not field mice but something different. They tunnel a lot like moles and can kill a plant by tunneling under, especially newly planted stuff, but that is accidental. I have a bigger problem with them eating on my sweet potatoes, not the white potatoes. I normally do not mulch my white potatoes, they self-mulch after a certain point, but often mulch the sweet potatoes to keep weeds and grass down. Especially Bermuda grass.

 

[journey11]

Here's a map I found on their range...

I remember Vfem in NC talking about being plagued with them. I'd never seen one either until the potato thing. Maybe there is some kind of trap or poison you could put out preemptively?

@digitS' , I was surprised to read that coyotes will eat them! What's that like, a potato chip? You can't have just one. LOL They're so tiny.