A New Venture

A New Year brings wonderful possibilities, this time in the form of a new venture with new friends. Between the holidays we met up with friends Eva and Patricia to get the ball rolling on a organic gardening cooperative. Between tea, cookies and lively chatter we have our plan for the growing season 2012. Who will grow what and where has been decided! We'll chat more about how often to meet up and how to go about harvesting at each others houses but I definitely think we're on to something here ...

This year, with the anticipation of being very pregnant during the prep season and the arrival of our twins in early summer I was "not allowed" to take on too much. Thankfully I have raised beds so that will help. My main crops will be salads and spinach, white celery and pickling cukes. I'm also looking forward to introducing them to spaghetti squash - it's not known here and is one of my favorite summer squashes so I can't wait to share some fantastic recipes. I'm also hoping to squeeze in some indian corn and black beans as "trial" crops but I think that will all depend on how ambitious I am feeling when the planting season comes around.

I feel like Eva and Patricia are doing so much more than I am so I jumped at the chance of being in charge of our pumpkin and squash starts - our bathroom window will be perfect for it and there's nothing better than getting to watch their sweet little leaves popping out of the soil.

Patricia will grow primarily beans and peas along with tomatoes in her green house. But I think Eva got the worse end of the stick this year .. she's got all the root (carrots, turnips, beets) and brassicas (cabbages and sprouts).

I'm chopping at the bit ... and started a Pinterest board just for vegetable growing. Stay tuned .. there will be much to show and share and don't be afraid to throw a question or two at us .. we'll do our best to answer.

A side note on languages ... for the time-being I will be posting in English while Eva and Patricia post in Nederlands (Dutch). Bear with us ... and make use of the translation tool in the right column. Yeh, I know .. Google isn't great but it's better than nothing.