Blood Meal to Rectify the Situation

I convinced Matt (without much persuasion needed) to make the trek to the gardening store. We are now armed and ready to plant:

1. Burpee’s Heirlooms: Carrot Touchon (Sweet & Tender)
2. Burpee’s Heirlooms: Radish French Breakfast (Crisp & Zesty)
3. Burpee’s Heirlooms: Pea Thomas Laxton (Delicious)
4. Botanical Interests: Spinach Bloomsdale
5. Onion sets (um, like 200 bulbs)

We’re going to wait until Mother’s Day for the tomatoes and zinnias.

The “Plant Doctor” was on call and we asked her to test our soil. When we explained that we do “square-foot gardening” she was very snooty and almost didn’t even want to test our “potting mix,” as she called it. She also insisted that six inches is not deep enough to grow anything (“You need more like 12”.) and she was aghast that we had plywood bottoms on our beds without drainage holes. We will take her advice and add some soon. (Editor’s Note: I just went back to good ol’ Mel’s book and he wrote, “If you decide to create a bottom for your SFG, use plywood sheeting and drill 1/4-inch drainage holes, one per square foot plus an extra hole in each corner.” Oops.

It turns our that our soil has perfect pH (6.5) and is pretty good across the board except for a slightly low nitrogen content. She recommended we add blood meal to rectify the situation.