On our way to the garden, we always play the Brunkilde game. (At most, three of you will know what that is.) Before we turn the corner on Angus Campbell Road, we each guess how many people will be there. In the mid-afternoon on Sunday, the sun had shown its face and the temperature was pleasant, for April. I guessed we’d see 8. Jim guessed 12. He usually is a better predictor than I am, but this time we were both surprised. There were over 20. It was great to see so many people getting their plots ready.
Jim went off to do some research while I took the black plastic off the northwest quarter. It didn’t take long to fluff and rake the soil. I marked off the squares and planted nine of snap peas, three of carrots, three of beets, six of rutabaga and three of spinach. According to the square-foot, no-thinning method, you put the exact number of seeds in each square at the exact distance they should be from each other. I find this to be a psychological challenge, especially since I’m still mostly using last year’s seeds, and I know the germination goes down each year even though I did keep them in the freezer. But the spacing is quite close so if a few don’t come up, it won’t matter. I used the rest of last year’s carrot tape, so I know I’ll be thinning carrots if nothing else.
