grand plans for my 2012 garden.....

I had such great luck with my raised beds last year, that this year I have bought 2 more sets thanks to my mom and step dad investing in my garden again this year!!! yipee!  I have big plans for those!

for my timing this year I found this cool looking "gardeners handbook"
http://www.amazon.com/Week---Week-Vegetable-Gardeners-Handbook/dp/1603426949/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330503912&sr=8-1
I found it at books a million and I;ve been wanting something like this for a while....turns out it got some good reviews on amazon, but not by many people who have actually used it...just who are excited about using it...reviews by people who have actually used it were very mixed...mainly that the authors gardening experience was limited to their climate in massachusetts....and their growing season is quite a bit shorter than other areas, like say, HERE! I had wondered about that too when they were calling the end of july "early fall" but I went through and tweaked the dates a little bit, so I hope that the timing will work out well....we'll see. I am mostly using it to tell me how far in advance to start seeds for my spring and fall gardens.

for spring
started in jiffy pellets:
brussells sprouts
kale
bok choi
lettuce
onions and leeks (new to me)
cabbage
I have planted mesclun and arugula outside in pots
I plan to start carrots, spinach, radishes, lettuce, chard, onions (white and green) mustard greens outside in raised beds within the next 2 weeks.
Since there was such an influx of compost to my raised beds this year due to my winter composting, I took some of my soil from the raised beds to be tested at the extension office....and it was such a nice dark rich brown color, they asked me if I was just testing potting soil....I hope that is a good sign that the soil is good. I just want to make sure that the ph isnt waaaay off and will fry my plants.

for summer
started in jiffy pellets
peppers
eggplant (also new to me)
I plan to start tomatoes within the next month or so
I also have seeds for bush beans, pole beans, lots of zuke, cuke and squash, and potatoes! Also mint, oregano, and stevia. I'll try to update these entries with specific variety names as soon as I can...just not now at 2:23am. :)
I've been doing some reasearch about intensive gardening methods such as succession planting (which seems like it takes a fair amount of experience to perfect....so I'm definitely learning by doing) and intercropping or interplanting. I'll share more about that research later.
I plan to post a diagram of my gardening plan, I just have to figure out how to get it from my pencil and paper sketch onto the blog....not sure if I have it in me to input it into the computer somehow...maybe scanning it?