DIY Planting Dimple Board – Your Spring Seed Catalog(s) Are In The Mail!

FYI: Center for Science in the Public Interest said “a host of veggies ranked based on their levels of nutrients and fiber.
The top scorers were kale, followed by other dark leafy greens like spinach, collard greens, chard, and turnip greens.
Top five for Vitamin C include red bell pepper, broccoli, green bell pepper, green chili pepper and Brussels sprouts.
High in potassium sweet potatoes, lima beans, spinach, chard, and portobello mushrooms.
Adding fiber with choices like artichokes, peas, avocado, lima beans.
Eating the most nutrient dense vegetables will deliver the most bang for your buck.”

Jasper Cherry Tomato, 2013 award winner Has a high resistance to early blight and fusarium wilt disease. Jasper F1 cherry tomato is just one of the reasons this 2013 All-America Selections (AAS) Vegetable Award winner will appeal to gardeners. This indeterminate hybrid cherry tomato also boasts a sweet, rich taste, outstanding performance and a long harvest window. It also has good tolerance of weather related stress.

Jerusalem artichoke What’s in a name? The Jerusalem artichoke (AKA sunchoke) is Not from Jerusalem and it’s Not an artichoke! It’s actually the root tuber found on some varieties of sun flowers. This plant is better adapted to the northern two thirds of the country than the southern one third.

Jerusalem artichoke

Fertilize using a 6-12-6 fertilizer broadcast in the row. Plant whole tubers or pieces of tubers that are no less than two ounces and have two or three prominent buds. Do not allow cut seed pieces to dry before planting. Plant 3 to 5 inches deep, in rows 36 to 42 inches wide with 15 to 24 inches between plants.

Jerusalem artichoke was titled ‘best soup vegetable’ in the 2002 Nice Festival For The Heritage Of The French Cuisine.

Roasted Jerusalem artichokes: Roughly peel (sunchokes) with peeler, no need to get every bit, and chop off the rough ends. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with kosher salt. Roast at 400 degrees for 30 minutes or until soft. Recipe from Granoladox blog

Old Farmers Almanac Gardening website
USDA Home Gardening website
Cornell University Home Gardening resources

DIY Homemade Dimple board A easy to build, idea winter project for the square foot or raised bed gardener. I will not get into all the how to build details, you can see them for yourself @Gardeninggrrl blog
I don’t have one but I will have one or more by this springs planting season. I think my first one will be dimples on 3 inch spacing for planting Radishes properly spaced so I don’t need to continually thin out a row where I have planted far to many radish seeds in my radish bed.

Hint: If your no good using or don’t own a skill saw and drill, a chocolate pie given as a gift to your handyman wood working neighbor will go a long way in getting you a handmade dimple board!

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas shopping ‘real’ home gardeners have mental flashes of green gardens and baskets full of fresh home grown vegetables. We sometimes find our self’s day dreaming of warm spring days, we can even feel and smell the fresh tilled soil under our feet.

Yes your mail box will soon be filled with wish books (seed catalogs) we envision sweet corn stalks head high, tomato vines loaded with fresh juicy home grown tomato’s, enough cucumbers for all the fresh salads we want and still enough left over to make jar after jar of pickles. Then reality hits us, crap, it’s still 4 months before spring arrives!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Why is common sense so uncommon?
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