We’ve started planting the first few seeds in the garden, but that’s just the latest step in the plant planning process. First came The Annual Garden Plan. Which is a little like an annual plan for a business: a ton of analysis goes into it, the various parties second-guess each other and negotiate compromises, the final decision mostly comes down to gut instinct, and oh, yeah…the plan changes 15 times between the “final plan” and the ultimate execution.
This is our 3rd year of gardening here at the Kopp’s Crops homestead, so at least we have some past data to pull from. We start by estimating how much of each vegetable we’ll want to eat fresh, which ones taste okay canned (we have lots of room for home canned goods), and how much room we have the freezer for the frozen ones. After that, the thought process tends to go a little like this: So, what did we run out of first last year? Frozen peas. So we definitely need more peas this year. But just the shelled kind – the sugar snaps didn’t freeze too well; too mushy. We only need enough of those for our fresh-eating needs. What about beets? We’ve got several jars left from last year, so we might be able to cut back a row or so. Okra? Believe it or not, it grows this far north. But we didn’t try so much as one bite of okra from last year’s garden, so there’s no need to repeat that little experiment. And finally: the little bit of corn we were able to freeze last year was so super-sweet and tender – let’s plant a lot. But this time can we try to find a variety that’s designed to be raccoon-proof?
