April 2010 and Plant Guilds

Early this month I direct seeded herbs (cilantro and dill), some shady wildflowers in pockets of the backyard, and beets out front. I also planted beans, entirely too early, and they did not come up - not sure what I was thinking. Well, I think I was reacting to the nice weather we had early in April. Lesson learned. I also sowed some seed potatoes. I wasn't planning to, but my friend K had some extra and I found a place for them. I hope they do well. I haven't been treating them very well since I know potatoes pretty much grow anywhere, under most conditions, but the other day I saw the squirrels messing around in that bed and now I'm worried.

I also transplanted the first lettuce and onions this month. We have a LOT of onions, and I kind of put them everywhere. I hope they do well, they seem so tiny and fragile, but I am banking on them repelling pests both for themselves and the other plants around them. I also spread some marigold seeds around the potatoes, and side dressed the garlic.

This weekend, mid-month, I transplanted the pumpkins, which seem to be doing well. They are BIG, and most sources say they do not do well started inside, especially when they get too mature. Ah, well. We shall see. I may plant one more pumpkin for good measure, but I'm already scared of how much they will take over out there.

I also bought strawberry starts and planted those. My only purchased start, but they take a long time apparently to start from seed and are finicky and I really wanted strawberries, for D's sake. So I bought some.

I also did a LOT of garden maintenance, beautifying, and planning of beds. The hardest thing for me is figuring out which plants will go WHERE, after considering:

good plant companions (and bad ones),
plant rotations (ie, brassicas and tomatoes not in the same spaces as previous year),
and this year, how to integrate more of a guild pattern than before.

Plant guilds are really fascinating to me and something I wish I knew more about. I do have a book, but it's one I have not gotten to. It's dense and my brain already hurts with the amount of plant knowledge added to it lately. It's like plant integration; instead of planting all your tomatoes in one spot, all your lettuce in another, and all your onions in yet another, it's making the integration of plants work for them (and you), by deterring pests, balancing elements in the soil, and using taller, tougher plants to shade more tender ones that need some shade.

This year, knowing more about certain plants and what they need I am trying to do some "guilding" as I plant. Interplanting lettuces and onions and marigolds is almost as far as I've gotten, but it's a start. It also helps ease the stress of having a finite number of each plant per space in a bed. If I interplant lettuce and onions, then I have that much more room for them, vegetables that we can use a lot of. I will see if this method serves me well this year, and of course report back here.