{"id":2249,"date":"2016-01-10T00:50:29","date_gmt":"2016-01-10T00:50:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenfreshveggies.com\/?p=2249"},"modified":"2018-01-01T12:09:43","modified_gmt":"2018-01-01T18:09:43","slug":"happy-new-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gopherknoll.com\/?p=2249","title":{"rendered":"Happy New Year!"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

We haven’t talked to you here in quite a while and you might be thinking we\u00a0were\u00a0washed away with the record rains of 2015. \u00a0We actually measured\u00a0a little over 86″ of rain at the garden last year.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Farm<\/p>\n

So yes, it’s pretty wet out there. \u00a0 Still, lots of good work\u00a0is going on\u00a0to make this\u00a0spring the best garden\u00a0yet.<\/p>\n

For example, \u00a0when the summer crops died off, we removed most of the leftovers to add to the compost pile and then planted\u00a0a cover crop of Elbon rye. \u00a0 \u00a0 As it grows, it binds nitrogen\u00a0(aka natural fertilizer)\u00a0which will be returned to the soil when it is mowed and\/or tilled later.\u00a0The cover crop also prevents germination of\u00a0weed seeds that might be looking for a start, \u00a0prevents erosion from all our rain, and when it is tilled in later, the decomposition will help to eliminate the harmful root knot nematodes that infest many of\u00a0the vegetable crops in East Texas – so it’s also a natural pesticide. \u00a0 \u00a0 That’s a lot of good to come from a little grass, no?<\/p>\n

Garlic and shallots are already planted. \u00a0Onions will be out soon. \u00a0 Carrots, peas and spinach\u00a0are being planted in the garden right now (under floating row cover). \u00a0And it is already time to start sets for many of the spring veggies. \u00a0 Right now (or last month, whichever comes first) \u00a0is time to start seeds indoors for cabbages, kales, broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, lettuces,celery, herbs and spring greens.<\/p>\n

\"Starts<\/p>\n

We won’t be starting our seeds for tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and other summer crops for a couple\u00a0more weeks. \u00a0Some cannot be safely set out until after our average ‘last frost’ date of March 15. \u00a0 (Many will require frost protection even then.) \u00a0We don’t want the starts to become root-bound or grow too large in their pots before transplanting, so we’ll wait a couple of weeks\u00a0still to start those.<\/p>\n

We expect to start regular\u00a0CSA deliveries the first of\u00a0May, but hopefully the earliest spring greens will be available by March. \u00a0Sure hope so! \u00a0We’re getting hungry for that fresh spinach!<\/p>\n

Welcome to 2016! \u00a0It’s going to be such a great year!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  We haven’t talked to you here in quite a while and you might be thinking we\u00a0were\u00a0washed away with the record rains of 2015. \u00a0We actually measured\u00a0a little over 86″ of rain at the garden…Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-planning","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gopherknoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gopherknoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gopherknoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gopherknoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gopherknoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gopherknoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2249\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gopherknoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gopherknoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gopherknoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}