Green Thumb in the Season of White

Here is how I'm getting my gardening fix in January...forcing paperwhites! I purchased these bulbs in fall, thinking I'd need something pretty and green this time of year. Little did I know how spring-like the temps would be (it is a very unseasonable 48* right now...but we have a winter storm warning for tomorrow)! Looks like they will blossom any day now.

I am planning on using these as the centerpiece for a certain little girl's fourth birthday, coming up in two and a half weeks.  

Lessons Learned: 2011

Every year I learn a lot of things about our garden, our soil, and our plants.  If I'm lucky I remember those things and make use of the info the next year.  If I'm not, I repeat the mistakes or fail to make the improvements I should have made.  Maybe keeping track of them here will help!  This year it was great to look back at my list of 2010 tomatoes and know just what to purchase this spring.

Without further ado, here we go:

• Polish Linguisa tomatoes still rock!  (Just as 2010.)  They are enormous (a canner's dream).  Need I say more?  Oh yeah, not very prone to ick, bugs, splitting, and so on.  
• Kate Hau, True Leaf Organics, is the best vendor to buy transplants from.  (She will blush when she reads this.) They were huge and reasonably priced.  Every one of them did beautifully.  Her peppers turned into enormous plants!  I purchased Tobago Seasoning peppers.  Normally I'm not a great pepper-grower, and these plants grew into the size of a Yugo (nearly!) and produced well.  Too bad for me that I didn't care for the taste of those particular peppers.  
• I really can grow onions, contrary to previous experience.  Ditto for full-size carrots. 
• Extending the season is awesome and makes Wisconsin's short growing season less depressing.  (I have radishes, turnips, carrots, green and regular onions, and several kinds of greens flourishing right now, at a time of year when I'd typically have just green tomatoes and floppy rhubarb. You just don't know how happy that makes me.)
• Brian was right.  Ix-nay on the orn-cay.  Sigh.  More space for better stuff next year.
• Must.have.cherry.tomatoes.  We tried to this year, but they were mislabeled and turned out to be a slicing tomato.  A nice slicing tomato, but Audra loves anything little that she can count and put into baskets and we had to beg, borrow, and steal to accomplish that this year.

Stuff I don't want to forget to plant next year:

• Kale - early!  As in April, or maybe even March.  As soon as there is bare mud.  
• Lettuces and spinach - early, too.
• Carrots, lots of them, and don't forget to do a late crop too.
• Turnips - they flourish...I hope we like them, 'cause we sure can grow 'em.  
• Brussel sprouts, because I love them.  Plant late enough, they are best after a frost or two, I'm told...might have to start my own seedlings.
• Maybe leeks?  I am starting to really love root crops and find that they generally do well in our soil and are great keepers without requiring canning, freezing, or other labor-intensive processing methods.

My little excitement for 2012:

• Multiplier onions!  I love nearly effortless crops!