2014 Edibles

I've been posting things about flowers because I am excited about growing flowers this year for the first time since closing my cut flower business 30 months ago.  For the growing seasons in 2012 and 2013 I could not grow flowers without feeling like it was "work", so I am really grateful to be excited about growing them again.  I just grew vegetables and perennial fruit crops in 2012 and 2013.  I still plan on growing vegetables this year but not as many as I did last year. 

Where
I have two gardens in Ypsilanti but neither is at a Project Grow site.  I grew my cut flowers on about a half acre of land I rented from Dawn Farm.  When I closed the business I fenced in about 1/10 of that space (twelve 100 square foot beds) and continue to rent that.  I also have a fenced 20 x 40 square foot garden at at my home. 

What
The Dawn Farm garden is about half edible perennials - 100sf of blueberry plants, 200sf of raspberries, 100sf of strawberries, 50df of asparagus, and 100sf holding two grape vines.  This year I am going to plant 200 square feet of flowers for cutting and the other 400 square feet will be sweet corn, collards, pimentos, bush beans and ground cherries.  At home I will be growing carrots, parsley root, tomatoes, melons plus sweet peas and a few other flowers.  In addition I will be putting about 8 or 9 blueberry plants.  Blueberries are have grown very slowly for me at Dawn Farm but they seemed to take off last year.  It was their 5th year, which seems glacially slow to me, but they are great so I was encouraged to try some more at home. 

Seeds I Ordered from Fedco
Sweet Corn

• Spring Treat
• Silver Queen 
• Augusta

These have staggered maturities and I each one gets 1/3 of a 100 sf bed.  It is an extravagant use of space but you really need that for corn. 

Carrots

• Scarlet Nantes
• Mokum
• Nelson
• YaYa
• Yellowstone

Bush Bean

• Provider

Pole Bean

• Fortex

Tomatoes

• Black Cherry (saved from tomatoes last year)
• Aunt Ruby's German Green (saved from tomatoes last year)
• Sun Gold

Melons

• Halona
• Sensation

I will get some others from the Project Grow plant sale but not sure which ones yet

I also have seeds left over from previous years for:

• Sweet pimento
• Vates collards
• Parsley root

What Got Squeezed Out

To make room for the flowers I will not be growing some things I grew the last couple years. These include cabbage, onions and parsnips.  It is fun to grow all three, and I am sure the cabbage and parsnips taste better than the ones from the store, but I had to give up something and these were the bottom of the list.