Happy Superb Owl Sunday! I actually saw three great horned owls this week while running along Minnehaha Creek; I can only assume they were here for the “event.” As for me, I think it will be a fire in the fireplace and board games tonight.

I did some careful sketching and reading through my journal the past few weeks to come up with my garden design for this year. I’m incorporating several things I’ve read about, and some insights from 2017. Without further ado:

From left to right, here are my plans and my inspiration for them all:

Tomatoes. Last year I debuted my new squirrel-proof tomato cage and it was well-worth the effort of building it. We had an abundance of tomatoes, and are still enjoying frozen tomato sauce (I use the oven-roasted tomatoes recipe from this book and then freeze it in half-pints).

I also finally had radish success last year by planting them earlier than I EVER have, I believe the second week of April. They were just about done by the time I planted my tomatoes, so it worked out beautifully. I plan to repeat that this year. I’m also planting two tomatillos. I love tomatillo salsa—I don’t really use a recipe but my method is something like this one from Epicurious.

I’ve tried tomatillos before and was disappointed by how few I got, but then I was reading the Seed Savers 2018 catalog and they recommend planting at least two tomatillos for best pollination. Maybe that explains my puny harvests before! I’m giving two plants a try this year.

Next, I’m going to try an interplanting of onions, carrots, and leeks. I tried leeks once before, and they turned out only OK, but I’ve learned a lot since then. I’ll sow carrot seed (I’m going to try soaking it overnight this year), onion starts, and leek seedlings. This bed can be planted early as well—probably around the end of April or very early May.

Next, I’m going to try moving my chamomile plants back into my garden after a few very uninspiring years in the herb spiral. They really need the fullest sun possible to get a profusion of flowers, and attracting a few more bees to the garden couldn’t hurt for my vegetables either. I’m also planting fennel and kohlrabi here. All three will have to be planted as seedlings.

My haricot verts will go in the last garden bed near the chimney. They’re one of the few non-heirloom seeds I grow—they are spectacular and prolific and I can’t find an heirloom that is their match. I’m also growing runner beans, though, so I might change my mind and put a hill of zucchini in this spot.

You’ll note the big question mark in my Sabathani community garden plot. We’ve been unable to find out whether we can garden there in 2018 or not. Sabathani community center [apparently] is building a senior housing complex in an empty lot next door. The garden is featured prominently in the designs, but they’ll need a year of parking their construction equipment on it before we can have it back (GROAN). It’s very much a wait-and-see situation there, and I may not have the chance to do my large plot of pumpkins and potatoes.

Over in the herb spiral I’m trying two new things: caraway and chervil. Apparently the entire caraway plant can be used—not just the seeds. My husband (our primary cook) loves his French herbs, so he’s getting lots of tarragon, chervil, thyme, and parsley.

Finally, I’m going to try and do a little more edible landscaping this year. I transplanted a huge piece of horseradish root from Sabathani so I’m hoping that survives and thrives in an open area of my front yard flower garden. Next to that I’m going to plant okra seedlings—I’ll start it indoors and transplant the seedlings, probably into large pots since okra is so finicky about soil temperature. The plants will also require some protection from rabbits and squirrels at first.

I’m also adding shallots to my strawberry bed, per a recommendation in the Encyclopedia book that I reviewed in my previous post. I’ll continue to grow hot peppers in pots, just like the okra.

Finally, I’m going to start collards and kale indoors in May so that I can plant them out in my lettuce tank in early July when my lettuce is done. I’m really hoping that replacing the bulb on my grow light results in much stronger seedlings this year.

Last of all—I’m thinking a lot about squirrels and how to keep them off my cucumbers. They took revenge on me last year for depriving them of tomatoes and ate EVERY SINGLE ONE of my cucumbers. I will need to build some sort of structure over the cucumber trellis.

I’m also bringing back another old favorite—Christmas Lima Beans! The primary reason I’m bringing them back is to have an excuse to make my favorite soup recipe, Christmas Lima Bean Stew from 101 Cookbooks. I made it with some other beans from the co-op last week, and it was fine, but it didn’t reach quite the same level of magic.

What are you planting this year? What did you learn last year that you’re putting into practice?