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Chat: How does your spring garden grow?

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Chat: How does your spring garden grow?

It's a great time to grow cool-season veg.

Lisa Brunette
and
Anthony C Valterra
Apr 26, 2023
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Anthony and I are opening up a chat to all subscribers, both free and paid. We invite your comments and questions on the subject of early spring, cool-season gardening.

If you’re new to Substack’s chat area, let us assure you how easy it is: Whether you’re reading this on your computer or the Substack app on your phone, just click or tap on the link below, and dive in!

Join Lisa Brunette’s subscriber chat
Available in the Substack app and on web

We’ll begin by saying that we had to get started on the early spring veg a bit later than usual, due to a prolonged winter here in the Midwest. So on March 26, we sowed the following seeds directly into the garden soil:

  • Peas

  • Lettuce

  • Swiss chard

  • Carrots

  • Cabbage

  • Kale

These are all fairly cold-hardy vegetables that thrive in this early part of the season, before Missouri’s heat and humidity cause them to bolt or wilt. The weather’s been great for them since then, and all six crops are at the “needing to thin” stage now. We’ve also had a few meals from our perennial asparagus bed and are now regularly harvesting perennial herbs such as mint, lemon balm, oregano, and marjoram.

Chickweed pesto… yum.

We’ve enjoyed a bounty from the free “weeds” in our garden—chickweed, henbit, dead nettle, cleavers, and violets. We’ve turned these into pesto, eaten them in salads, and used them to flavor water.

Finally, we scrambled to grab those lilac blossoms while they were up, and I made a batch of lilac syrup and took a trial-run at lilac-lemon marmalade, which I’ll cover in an upcoming post.

If you thought you had to wait until May to garden, think again!

From our archives, here are some posts on early spring-season planting.

Brunette Gardens
If you're not growing carrots, you don't know what's up, doc
By Lisa Brunette This is our third year growing carrots, and we're happy to report the vibrant root veg has earned a permanent place in our home garden. Why? So. Many. Reasons… Easy to Grow First, carrots are surprisingly easy to grow. You just have to pick the right variety. Here in the Midwest, the car…
Read more
9 months ago · 2 likes · 1 comment · Lisa Brunette
Brunette Gardens
This fall, plant the lazy gardener's vegetable: asparagus
By Lisa Brunette Asparagus is a perennial vegetable, which means it comes back every year on its own. Once established, an asparagus bed will send up fresh, nutrient-packed shoots with very little work on your part. It's an ideal situation for the lazy gardener…
Read more
9 months ago · 3 likes · Lisa Brunette

Note you can plant asparagus and carrots either in spring or fall.

Brunette Gardens
For cool season success, try growing greens
Cut 'Tendergreen' mustard, a tasty cross with spinach that holds up well in our planting zone. By Lisa Brunette This is our third year trying earnestly to grow as much food as we can, and it's been our best year yet. Anthony and I have both made a metric ton of mistakes, but we've learned from them. We experiment, measure the results, and change the approa…
Read more
a year ago · 1 like · Lisa Brunette

Now join us in the chat and tell us what’s happening in your little corner of Eden!

Join Lisa Brunette’s subscriber chat
Available in the Substack app and on web

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Lisa Brunette
Apr 26Author

WE'RE OVER IN THE CHAT RIGHT NOW! HAPPY HUMP DAY!

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