Henbogle

Maine Gardeners, save the date for Maine Garden Day!  This years’ event will be on Saturday, April 14 at Lewiston High School.

Although Dan and I are going to be abandoning Henbogle for much of the summer,  I’m still planning a garden.  With my hoophouse, and judicious selection of crops, I should be able to produce some good eating in the spring and later summer.  My plan calls for a 3 distinct phases.

First, I’ll plant a mix of short and medium season crops, started early in the hoophouse, others outside as soon as the soil is warm enough.  The next phase will be to plant long season crops in the main garden and mulched heavily to keep weed down and soil moist over the summer months.  The third phase will be the harvest of long season crops when we return, and planting more short season crops for fall harvest, both in and out of the hoophouse.

One of my regrets this winter is I did not have enough planted in the hoophouse to take advantage of the very mild fall we had.  We had a killing frost of October 8, followed by 20 more mild days before a freak snowstorm on October 29, followed by another stretch of unusually warm weather.  Had I filled the beds in the hoophouse, I would have had some good eating in the fall.  Ah well, at least the beds are ready now for me to wintersow cold-tolerant veggies in February, in hopes of early spring veggies for Phase 1 of the garden plan.  Here’s the overall plan:

March 15 – June 15 — 90 days

• Broccoli Raab — Sessantina Grossa 35 days
• Mini Broccoli — Happy Rich 55 days
• Broccoli — Blue Wind 49 days
• Cauliflower — Snow Crown 50 days
• Tatsoi — 45 days
• Pac Choi — Shiro 30 days
• Kohlrabi — Eder 38 days
• Lettuces and arugula, etc, cilantro and parsley

June 15 – October 10 — 115 days

• Brussels Sprouts — Diablo 110 days
• Cabbage — Deadon 105 days
• Cabbage Storage #4 95 days
• Leeks Bandit — 120 days
• Parsnip — Albion 120 days
• Squash — Confection 95 days
• Butternut — Waltham 105 days
• Tomatoes –Cherokee Purple 72 days
  • Amish Paste 85 days
  • Speckled Roman 85 days
  • Rose 78 days
• Dill — Superdukat 105 days
• Parsley — Titan 75 days
• Maybe some melon or other long season heat lover in the hoophouse

August 20 – October 10 — 50 days (but allowing for less sunlight closer to 37 days)

• Broccoli Raab — Sessantina Grossa 35 days
• Broccoli — Blue Wind 49 days (I can dream, right?)
• Cauliflower — Snow Crown 50 days (more dreaming!)
• Tatsoi — 45 days
• Pac Choi — Shiro 30 days
• Kohlrabi –  Eder 38 days
• Mache –  Vit 50 days
• Minutina — 50 days
• Claytonia — 40 days
• Kale — Red Russian 50 days
• Cilantro — 50 days
• Lettuces and arugula, etc

So, am I missing something?  Is this plan completely unfeasible, or might it work?