Spring Garden Planting in New York

I’m officially declaring it Spring because a few days ago I was able to wear a dress without tights under!  Since it’s Spring that means one thing – it’s time to plan our garden!  We always look forward to planting our seeds in Spring and the organization that comes with it.

 First we talk about what grew good last year, what we didn’t think do that well, what we grew too much of (bok choy!), what we need more of.  Then we discuss adding new vegetables to the garden – is there anything that we really want to grow that we aren’t already? From there we view catalogs, make a list, order any seeds that we might need and start planting.

The answer some of those questions…. the garden is staying pretty similar to last year with some little changes.  Cauliflower continues to be challenging for us to grow and leaves us not feeling that it’s always worth it.  Matthew wanted to get rid of cauliflower completely this year but I talked him into giving it one more chance, so we’re trying a new variety (Snow Crown).  Cauliflower, don’t let me down, you’re on notice.  

We grew almost 100 bok choy plants last year which was crazy, so this year we are growing less, and I will be picking it earlier in the season to enjoy it in it’s “baby” size.  We’re getting rid of radishes, they’re so easy to grow that it almost feels wrong to stop but I just haven’t been in a radish mood.    

The new addition to the garden is celery! We’ll be trying to grow it for the first ever this year so stay tuned on how that goes!  Isn’t it amazing to see 100 future celery plants in my hand?  (We aren’t growing 100 though!)

We are pushing everything back about 2 weeks this year for Spring planting because last year we had some close calls with some of our greens and frost.  I can’t handle any garden heartbreak (too emotional already) so hopefully this makes the plants a little more comfortable.    So instead of planting on March 5 and March 14 indoors, we planted on March 18 and March 25.  

Besides the carrots and lettuce, here is the full Spring garden lineup.

And here is the number of plants we have planned.   This year we’re increasing Brussels Sprouts from 6 plants last year to 18 this year.  The plants grew so well and the Sprouts freeze easily that it seems worth it.    We also grew way too many Collards last year so we cut back on those too. 

The onions were planted almost 2 weeks ago and started to pop their pretty heads through the soil.    Onions are one of Matthew’s favorite vegetables to grow in the garden so we always have a big section devoted to them.  I just found a great way to preserve them is to make caramelized onions to freeze – recipe coming soon!

This past weekend we planted the seeds….

And now we just play the waiting game for them to emerge from the soil.  Once the plants get bigger we’ll transplant from these little cups, to larger cups and then eventually outside.

But for now… they’ll go under the lights and we’ll anxiously wait!  See you soon little seedlings!

Have you started your Spring garden?  What are you growing?  Tell me in the comments!