Got a few things in the ground this weekend

The georgeous weather this weekend motivated me to get a ton of work done. I've got the whole garden plot ready to recieve, and put in a dozen marigolds. You have to really look closely at this picture to see them. I planted seeds for red beets, turnips and Daikon radish. All of these seed packets said to sow them 3 - 4 weeks before the last frost date, so I think they should be okay. All three of these crops just went nuts in my back yard last year. Case in point, while preparing the garden this year I pulled out a four inch long radish (about a week or 2 ago) that had started growing of its own accord from seed left from last fall. It had apparently been growing quite happily while we were still getting quite cold nights, so I think all three of these things will come up and be okay. I was going to plant the Touchstone Gold beets too, but those seed packets say to say to wait until after any chance of frost, which surprised me. I had thought that I could put all the beets in at one time but I guess not. It's probably just as well. This should give me a good supply over a longer period.

I also put in the banana fingerling seed potatos, which also say to sow 3 - 4 weeks before the last frost. I've had these in my refidgerator for several weeks now. I guess I expected them to have green sprouts coming out of them, but they pretty much just looked like little potatos. I did see a small white sprout coming out of one of them. I have six more than I had allotted space for - there were more than I expected - so I think I might try the last half a dozen in pots.

That's everything that can go into the ground right now, I think, for another 3 weeks at least.

As far as the plan, my garden is divided into 78 squares, 6X13. 54 of them on one side will grow potatoes, sweet potatoes, radish, red and yellow beets, eggplant, peppers and bush beans. The remaining 24 squares at the other end of the garden are for turnips, melon, tomatoes and cucumbers. The radish and marigolds which seem to do well with everything are planted throughout the entire garden. My main goal here was to keep the potatoes and tomatoes as far apart as possible - potatoes on one end and tomatoes on the other. At the moment I have a few squares on the tomato end that I'm not sure what to do with. I had originally allotted them for radish and turnip, but they're not my favorite vegetables and I was afraid I'd end up with too many of them both, so I stopped planting them yesterday. I may plant another round of beets at a later date, or maybe something else, I'm not sure. I'm going to try growing the melons UP like the tomatos, so that they don't take over everything, which I know that they will do.