5-18-09 Planting Seeds & Sets

Here are a few notes on planting seeds in the raised garden beds:

It takes 4 small bags of Miracle-Gro soil per raised garden bed.

Green Beans ~~ Add 3 bags of the soil to the bed and smooth the soil out some. Sprinkle handsful of bean seeds over the surface of the soil. You can get them pretty close together in raised beds. Add 1 bag of soil over the seeds, smooth and tamp down the soil a little. Water well and try to keep a little moist. Any beans that come up too close together can be thinned out later. I plant only Top Crop green beans. They are the best without a doubt.

Carrots ~~ Add 3 1/2 bags of soil to the bed. Smooth and pat down the soil. Taking pinches of carrot seeds between your fingers, sprinkle fairly evenly over the surface of the soil. Crumble the remaining 1/2 bag of soil evenly over the seeds. Tamp down fairly firmly and water well using light mist. Keep moist. As the baby carrot come up you can harvest some of the babies to leave room for the others to get big. I will only use Red-Cored Chatenay carrots.

Watermelons - Cantaloupes - Squash ~~ These can all be planted just like the green beans. Keep moist. I used Black Diamond watermelons, Hales Best cantaloupes, and Hubbard winter squash.

Onion Sets ~~ When you plant onion sets, use all 4 bags of soil in the garden bed. smooth out and tamp down slightly. Push each little set (pointy end up) down into the soil so about half of the set remains above the soil line. If you bury them deeper you won't get the wonderful big onions you were dreaming of. Water and keep moist.

Potatoes ~~ I prefer Kennebec Potatoes over any other variety. Lay your seed potatoes near a sunny window until they have nice green sprouts on them before planting. I used a double-high raised bed and laid the seed potatoes directly on the loosened soil of the bottom of the bed. Then filled the double-high bed with soil. This should give plenty of grow room for the potatoes. You could make it triple-high if you so desire.