You know how sometimes certain things just don't go right, and you assume it's something you've done wrong, and then you find out it's just something that everyone has problems with, and then you get that contented/relieved little feeling in your chest? (What, you mean everyone doesn't go through that?) Well, it happened to me twice today--twice.
First, I was reading local gardening columnist Gwyn Mellinger's weekly column. This week, in her discussion about garden planning, she says:
"Some gardeners who are pressed for space try to reuse the areas of the garden where early crops grow by replanting late-season crops there. The term for this is succession planting. For the average home gardener in Kansas, the concept is difficult to implement because of the length of our growing season.
"Because we generally don’t plant our early-season greens and cole crops until March and we plant our hot-weather crops in April and May, we don’t have adequate time to plant twice in the same spot. Seeds and transplants have difficulty getting started in the summer heat, so the first practical opportunity to replant is in fall. In this part of the country, fall gardening is complicated by the arrival of frost in October.
"Most home gardeners who use succession planting as a space-management strategy are located in more temperate climates with much longer growing seasons. If we could plant our greens and cole crops in early February, this would be worth trying. As a practical matter in Kansas vegetable gardens, every crop needs its own space."
OK, I know this may not seem big to most of you, but many, many, many gardening books say that secession planting is the way to go when you're limited on space. I've been trying to make it work for two years now, and have always thought myself a bit of a failure when X vegetable didn't mature fast enough to pull it out and put something else in. Come to find out, it's not me, it's my climate--hooray!
The second lesson of the day came from Garden Rant, in a post about tulips. Garden Rant's Elizabeth says:
"I know many who have given up on tulips because the plants don't act like other perennials, coming back bigger and better each season. Hybrid tulips kind of do the opposite: they decline after a year or so, particularly when the conditions are not ideal. Hybrid tulips=annuals in my gardening practice; I plant them in containers and raised beds and compost them without a qualm when they're done."
Again, I planted what felt like a truck-load of tulips our first year here, and was very disappointed when they bloomed for just one year and were never heard from again. Come to find out, it's not me, it's the tulips--hooray! I think next year I may try as she suggests and plant species tulips instead.
I'm normal, it's my climate/flower choice/non-specific gardening books that are screwed up--hooray!
