Planting by the Signs Garden is finally underway

My apologies for having been gone from my blog for so long. The fact of the matter is, I’m back and delighted to report my 2011 Planting by the Signs Garden is finally underway!

While I’ve seen lots of gardens around my area that are up and going, I’ve seen an equal number of patches of bare ground – like mine was until last Monday afternoon when the moon was in the light phase and the sign was in Scorpio (the secrets), one of the four most fertile signs.

It was my intention to have a garden this year planted entirely according to the phases of the moon and signs of the zodiac. I got off to a decent start when it was plowed on Feb. 19, a sunny Saturday with the temperature climbing into the low 60s.

I seeded two flats of tomatoes in mid-March when the moon was in the light phase and the sign was a fertile one. I’d calculated they’d be ready to go in the ground right after Mother’s Day (May 8) and they’d be of perfect size and age.

Then the rains hit Central Kentucky – lots of other places too, the ground stayed wet, the grass recovered the garden and things looked grim.

Thus those tomato plants seeded in March made it to Mother Earth on Monday, June 13, leggy and spindly but at least seeded and planted according to the phases and signs. Like a good Master Gardener, I broke the leaves off the lower end of the stem so that roots would emerge and planted them deep.

We’ll just have to see if they make it to harvest or if nearly three months was too long to hold them in the planting flats! I put out some 30 plants that took up a row and a piece and still have a few left to go in the raised beds. The plants are spaced three feet apart.

I also planted a row (90 feet) of bush beans, part of a row of okra because our son likes it breaded and deep fried, and a row divided between summer squash and zucchini.

There are still several rows unplanted and I’ll use them for succession plantings of bush beans and/or my fall garden since I didn’t get to do a spring garden and got a late start on my summer garden.

If the groundhogs, rabbits and deer don’t get it, we oughta have a crop – as they say.