Saturday, April 21, 2007

spring planting

markers fava beans
The weather is great for growing vegetables. I have a lot of garden work to do. I picked up some row markers today, because I'm planting more seeds than I can remember. Today I planted fava beans, peas {green and Capucijner), and carrots (Oxhart, red cored chantenay and purple). I've never seen fava bean seeds before - they're enormous! I used rhizobia inoculant with all of my peas and with the fava beans. I'm hoping this gives the seedlings a boost and gets them off to a good start.
Vicia faba

2 comments:

TYRA Hallsénius Lindhe said...

Hallo, sitting in our "summer house" and this is the first time with Internet working here. Wow, I´m so glad. Love the aerial views of your garden, great idea. Do you put black plastic on top of the soil to warm it up? or? Rhizobia inoculant never heard of before. Do you use it on all the vegetables? Or just beans and peas.

kathy said...

Hi Tyra, I love looking at photos of your beautiful greenhouse! I bet Sweden is getting more sunlight now and you must be happy to be through with the winter darkness. My husband tells me how beautiful Stockholm is.

I am using the black plastic to warm the soil up more quickly. It didn't work for me though since we have only had cloudy rainy weather for the past 2 weeks. The plastic is supposed to absorb sun and heats up, warming the soil under it. The soil was actually cooler under the plastic every time I checked.

Inoculant is a soil bacterium (Rhizobia species) that is helpful for peas and beans. Its only used for legumes: peas, beans, soybeans, fava beans and not for other garden vegetables. Its especially helpful in cold, wet weather. Peas and beans need rhizobia on their roots and the ones in the soil aren't active yet early in the spring. Plus I am planting my peas and beans in an area I've never grown them before, so there may not be many rhizobia there yet. This is the product I used this year. I've been just sprinking it on the furrow along with the seeds as I plant them.