I am making an attempt to try and make the Good Friday planting date. I stretched some greenhouse plastic over the beds to try and warm things up a little faster. We have finally broke through the clouds this afternoon with some sunshine which will help melt a little of the snow out there.
Organic Gardening recently had an article about solarization which is different than what I am try to accomplish. Solarization would use the same technique, but would be implemented during hot weather so the soil would essential cook. This would help kill weed seeds and "bad" fungus problems to "clean" the soil up for planting beds. I may be successful in germinating some of the weeds in the beds doing this now, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
I will keep you posted on the progress in my attempt to warm up my garden beds early.
We spent a week in Florida (again) this past week. It was unseasonably cool according to the desk clerk, but we weren't complaining. 60's beat our weather by a long shot this past week.
I was just checking the stats while we were gone to see what kind of snow fall we experienced during our absence. There is still lots of it on the ground even though very little fell in our absence. Last year people were mowing the grass as we rolled into town.
Last year's unseasonably warm spring has made us feel somehow entitled to more of it this year. We paid for the early spring last year with a "seasonable frost" that took out the early buds on the apple trees. This cost us any abundance of apples for cider and other products that come from the excess crop not sold for straight fresh eating. I had a good crop of most everything since I was able to irrigate what the drought deprived us of naturally. Most of this was due to an early start of things in the ground.
I look out on my beds today with large, gentle flakes landing on mostly snow-covered, frozen ground of my raised beds. I don't think the onions will be getting in this week like I hoped. I will have to get very creative with my pea planting if they will be seeing soil on Good Friday. Of this, I am not optimistic. The only seeding I will be accomplishing this week will be under artificial light. I want to get the baby cabbages started for early set. There is lettuce to get set as seedlings before hitting the beds. Even the south side of the house has some amount of snow cover. It might be a good time to construct some cold frames with my double walled Lexan and warm the soil up with some solar heating.
I will think on this as I sip the last of the margaritas by the space heater and come up with "Plan B".
I have been puttering around in the basement with my underground greenhouse. The stock plants are growing again after the up grade to 3" pots last month and the cuttings on them are starting to become substantial enough to make this year's coleus crop. Once that is done, I will be able to open up a few spots under the lights and get busy seeding.
The onions got their first hair cut today. They were getting a little floppy so off with their heads! This will push growth to the roots again and start strengthen the bulb-effect which onions are meant to do.
After looking in every catalog and seed rack for annual baby's breath I finally found it! Aldi market had a few odd items on their seed rack and I scored the baby's breath which is on my daughter's wish list for her October bridal bouquet. Perennial would bloom to early. With annual baby's breath, I can seed successive crops in hopes of getting them when I need them.
My mushroom plugs came yesterday for Chicken-in-the-woods. We have several spruce "stumps" from the removal of our Norway spruce two years ago. Spruce is ideal for this variety of shroom. I have to wait for the ground to thaw to start this project.
I often wish that people would be willing to comment back on the blog. I am interested in knowing what some of the other gardeners are up to. Maybe someone will get brave.
Rather than include a complete list of my seeding, I would like to talk about the process. The Excel file would not transfer to this format and is only a template for the things I am seeding, not a universal schedule for everyone.
I sat down at the computer and entered the name of the seeds, time to seed before final frost, days to maturity, and any additional seeding notes. In the Excel sheet, I am able to sort the list by any of the above categories to suit my needs. By name, I can see what I have at a glace. By seeding dates, I can line up the calendar for what needs to be done in sequential order. By days to maturity, I can line up the whole seeding season including the direct seeded items. The additional notes include soil temp and special treatments (chilling, soaking, etc.) as a heads up to prep needed in the days before seeding. I am able to print the list with any of these as my priority which will put the varieties in a sequential order as needed. It just sounds harder than it really is.
I also separated flowers from veggies. There are more flowers which need to be started indoors than vegetables, so the order of seeding is more critical here. Instead of having days to maturity, I put in a height/spacing column for planning in the garden. Most of my flowers are for sun. If I was mixing it up with sun and shade, I would have had that as a category as well.
Now I can put this information on a calendar or just write dates next to the sequential listing for seeding in my notes column. I could have had a date column, but I have the need to do some illegible scribbling of my own in some part of the process. Happy seeding everyone! Spring is just around the corner.
While the storm blows outside, I savor a Leinenkugel's Sunset Wheat during my cool down. Round one of clearing the snow is done. Round two will wait until tomorrow morning. The amount of snow events we have had this winter puts 2011-2012 to shame. Hopefully, this will help replenish the groundwater and surface waters that suffered great losses in last summer's drought. It would be easier to handle if I didn't have to spend my days telling people to shovel their walks. It will all be over soon. But I digress.
The main event of the evening is bubbling away on the stove. A pound of ground Black Angus is the base for tonight's supper...homemade chili. I don't make chili the same way twice because I don't follow a recipe or measure ingredients. What I can say is this homemade chili is pretty much home-grown.
The beef came from friends who raise them just miles from our home. The onions grew in the garden as did the tomatoes, kale (I added some dehydrated flakes), peppers, and jalapenos I added my spices which came from Penzey's and/or The Spice House, local purveyors of the spice trade. I added a bottle of Leine's Creamy Dark from one of our finest Wisconsin micro-brewers. (Yes, they are almost to big to be called that, but the beer is never a watered down imitation of beer.) My plan is to let it simmer for an hour or two before laddling out a bowl. My plan is to top it off with some Wisconsin sharp cheddar.
Let is snow, I'm safe inside. A nice hot shower, a cold beer and a bowl of chili. Simple things are the best.
