Today I planted taters and peas

You may be wondering when I'm going to stop planting peas, and well, today is the last. I've got a total of five beds planted with peas, for about 225 row-feet of peas total. A couple days ago, Lily told me that "very soon", she's not going to come into the kitchen between breakfast and dinner when she's hungry. She's been eating a lot of pea shoots so far, and being kind in her grazing, so I think we'll have enough for her appetite and some freezing.



The big job today was planting the taters that I've had resting in my garage for a couple weeks. I have three varieties: a red-skinned mid-season, the classic Yukon Gold, and some French fingerlings.



Dan gave me his opinion about bed prep, so I first dug a deep trench in each row. My rows are about 18" apart (center-to-center), and I tossed the dirt to the sides. Then Lily came through and dropped the chitted taters in equal spacing. If that's not a great garden job for a 5 year old, I don't know what is.



When they were all properly spaced, I tossed a bit of fertilizer and some dirt back on top. As the season progresses, I'll regularly scrape the hilled dirt onto the growing tater plant. You want nice, loose soil surrounding the roots, and since taters only grow above the seed tater you planted, the easiest thing to do is encourage the formation of the roots above-ground.

The rest of the garden is looking so spring-y, I decided to snap some pics of how various crops are growing. Here are some mustards (purple) and raab (green):



The beets are looking healthy:



I'll be thinning these lettuces into a salad later this week:



And here are some just-sprouted lettuces, which are the second succession planting:



Plenty of radishes for even the most radish-happy people:



And some yummy spinach, which didn't germinate terribly well, but is growing like gangbusters now:



Oh and the microgreens are all sprouting now. We'll harvest them in about two more weeks: