Joe's Gardens comes to my garden

On a recent trip to town for provisions, we decided to drop in at Joe's Gardens in Bellingham and see what was growing on.  Joe's is a longtime local nursery and produce grower here in Whatcom County.  They've been growing wonderful produce and plant starts in Happy Valley for over 70 years!  We've always had great luck with plant starts that we purchase from Joe's in years past and I highly recommend buying your plants there if you live in this area.

Normally not open until sometime in March, we were thrilled to see the doors open and a few racks of starts ready for purchase, along with a rack full of new seeds from Ed Hume.  Another Northwest favorite!  The staff was busy working in the greenhouses, but one gentleman took time out from his work to come talk garden with us. 

We raved about the weather and the early spring and he advised us that Saturday would be their first planting day.  According to their testing of the soil temps, we were advised that plantings of beets, carrots and radishes were good for direct seeding now, just be sure to plant in the top 1/4" of the soil where its being warmed by the sun.  Great news since I'd already done some of my planting.

We went through the few racks of plants and chose a number of new starts that would be nice additions to this years veggie patch.  The peas they had started were so beautiful!  Even though I've already planted some peas in my organic garden, I just couldn't resist these lovely 2" starts.  I purchased both sugar snap peas and oregon pea pods.  Along with that impulse buy, we chose garlic chives, globe artichokes, leeks, walla walla sweet onions, leeks, and italian parsley.  I also grabbed seed packets for parisian market carrots and easter egg radishes.

A box of starts from Joe's Gardens.

A sure sign of spring in Whatcom County!

With good weather in the 5 day forcast and sunny days, I once again set aside my recycled bag project, threw on a hat and boots and got to work in the garden.  With only 1 bed left unplanted it was going to be tough to find spots for these wonderful new starts, but I was up for the challenge.

I started off by pulling back the plastic cover from the boat garden to allow some direct sun on the plants I've got going in there. I have limited space in my garden, so I try to practice space saving methods I learned from the Square Foot Garden.  I found a nice hole in the strawberry planting and popped in 1 of the 2 artichokes and placed the second start in the center of the boat amongst some fennel and lemon balm already growing there.  Then I planted about 30 radish seeds in another area of the boat between some garlic, found another spot for the garlic chives and parsley, and squeezed in a row of parisian carrots next to my previously planted lettuce.  I think I've can find room enough for one or 2 future salad plantings in here too!

This old boat has served us well for growing produce.

Next I popped the leeks into a large pot.  I'm going to let them develop a bit more and come back and transplant them a bit later.  That left me with 2 containers of peas and 1 of walla wallas. 

What a great day! Echo the Eco dog found a nice sunny

spot to bask up some warmth.

I still had 1 unplanted bed in the garden.  I had planned to let this bed rest for another week, but with these new starts I bumped that idea.  Hopefully my recent addition from the worm bin is fully composted!  I made a nice row down the center and added the oregon pea pod starts.  They look fabulous.  Along one side I planted a row of the walla wallas.  This bed is going to make for some great eating this year! 

How nice do these peas look?!?

Now what to do with the other peas?  Oh my, I'm really running out of space in here!  Ok, so I checked on the bed where I'd planted my fall planting of strawberry starts.  If I moved a few of these berry plants, I thought I could fit a row of peas down the backside of this bed.  Easy enough.  I transplanted about 12 berry plants into spaces deeper in the bed and added a row of sugar snap peas down the back even with the garlic and celery already growing in here, there was enough room!  Yay! 

The fern fronds as mulch around my garden beds.

With the veggies planted and the sun still shining, I grabbed the wheelbarrow and went back to cutting on my ferns.  Don't worry though, the daylight hours are still short, so I'll be getting some recycled bags done this evening.

Oh and by the way, don't forget to enter to win your own FatBottomBag in the Pay It Forward Giveaway.  I'll be choosing 1 winner on Thursday, so there's still time to share how you are making the world a little bit better.  I'm so impressed with the entries so far!  It's wonderful to hear how each one is making a difference in the world and community.  It's going to be really difficult to choose just one!