Chinese cabbage, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts
Laura over at The Modern Victory Garden has a wonderful seed starting schedule for Pacific Northwest gardeners to follow. I am woefully behind already. This is OK because Laura is in the thick of planting cabbages and other Brassica plants and I am not planning on planting too many of these this year. I do believe that it is important to grow what you’ll eat and my family just won’t eat that much cabbage and kale. Maybe I’ll plant more when the kids are older. That said, I have started a few chinese cabbage, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts plants so I will have a small planting of these this year.
Following the grow what you’ll eat philosophy, I am going to expand my orchard a bit this year. Every fall, Raintree Nursery has a wonderful spring pre-order sale. My giant bare-root box just arrived, including a filbert hedge, a mini-dwarf William’s Pride apple tree, and a few high bush cranberries. The filbert hedge will be the beginning of a mixed nut and berry privacy hedge that will fill in a weed blighted and underutilized area next to our driveway. The William’s Pride was ordered so I would have an additional pollinator for my Gravenstein trees. The apples sound yummy too. The cranberries were free for ordering the other items and how could I resist having a few more?
So, this afternoon I’ll be heading outdoors, ignoring the Seattle mist, to get my bare root trees in the ground. At least the moist (but not waterlogged) soil will make for easy digging.
Oh, I learned an interesting new word today thanks to Laura at The Modern Victory Garden. Imbolc. Do you know what it means? What a great word and hopeful time in the garden.
Sandy
The 10 Year Challenge 
Your focus on growing what you eat is definitely the way to go. Growing items your family does not eat (or only half heartedly) means you are using valuable growing space that could be more productively employed on things you DO like!
I wish I had more property with good sun exposure to put in some nut and fruit trees like you have. They would be such a nice addition. This is my second year for the bush pie cherries though and I am hopeful they will provide a reasonable harvest this year as a result.
Wishing you a happy ground hogs day (Imbolc)!
Good for you – I’m behind you and we eat tons of brassicas. I’m still waiting to see how my cranberry vines do this year. Last year I got nothing.
Just found your blog and have read it completely. Love what you’re doing in a relatively small space!
I’m really interested in your fruit and nut privacy border. Do you have a plan for that, and if so, would you mind sharing it in a new post or via email? This is exactly what I need on my irregular shaped property to hide an area where trees were taken out to run water lines on the property behind mine. Now I have full view of the neighbors property up the street…not a good view…and they like playing their music loud. I thought about 8 foot privacy fence, but like the idea of an edible fence (either for us or to share with the birds) much better! And it would be better to catch some of the noise too.
Anyway, I put you in my feed reader and although I’m smack in the middle of the heartland (many miles from you!) I look forward to seeing more of your ideas.
Thanks….back to lurking….
Denise