Spring Snow

I was up and about at 6:30 this morning to check the greenhouse. Discovered that the timer on the circulation fan had stalled at some point, so that the fan was on in the middle of the night rather than in the heat of the day. Corrected that. Outside, the temperature felt about 30.

Soil and air temperature in the greenhouse in the mid 50's. Lettuce is growing well. Plenty to cut for dinner tonight.

The tomatoes are not looking exactly lush, they are putting on some new growth, but not bright glowing green. There appears to be a bit of chlorosis. I note that the water walls keep the soil moister than is the case in the rest of the greenhouse. I wonder if the roots are a bit waterlogged. I am going to cut back on the watering a bit.

The spinach is not growing the way I would like. It's growing long and spindly and not putting on a lot of leaves, and some of the plants are bolting. I'm thinking of hacking it back. These are nursery starts, var. "vancouver". Not sure I will do those again. Note for next year to start "bloomsdale" myself.

Carrots are still no-shows at this point. There are about 5 plants, but it looks like I need to replant.

I ran the lawnmower yesterday and picked up about 20 bushels (catcher holds 2bu) of dead leaves, old thatch and other debris. I dumped out the kitchen scraps and covered them with the lawn debris. Took me about 35 minutes to do the back part of the lawn. Would have done the front too, but dinner was ready and I need to move the trampoline and get the kid's toys out of the way first. I planned to do that this morning, but around 7:00 it started snowing hard.

It's actually snowing very hard. Not much wind, but BIG flakes and already about half an inch accumulated as of 8:00. Gray, cold, snowy day.

Inside, seedlings are doing well. I have 3 varieties of peppers and 5 of tomatoes growing well. I also have herbs going. Mint, Oregano, Marjoram, Savory, Coriander. I planted rosemary as well, but it's not coming up.

I worked in the garage most of the day yesterday, and planned to work in the garden most of today. Guess I should have done it the other way. Looks like it will snow all day.

I'm finishing up a seed starting bench to hold the grow lights today. It will support a bank of 6 flourescent tubes in three fixtures over a 2x4 area. This is a large enough space to hold 4 flats. I will be able to independently adjust the height of the lights so that I can start a couple of seed flats and also grow a box of lettuce or some tomatoes.

Not much else to report today. Time to go do something.

One goal achieved

Today I achieved an important milestone in the development of our garden and my skills in managing it. I picked the first lettuce and spinach harvests of the year. The importance of this is that we still have storage onions and frozen beans and peas from last season. This means that we have succeeded in having vegetables from our garden available for our table for the entire year, and that if I am as successful with row covers and cold frames as I was last year, I should be able to extend my fresh food season to 7 months of the year.

I realize that in many parts of the country this is not that big of a deal, but I live in a high mountain valley where the normal growing season is less than 100 days. We are still 2 months away from our last frost (June 17 last year), so to have anything fresh from the garden is an accomplishment.

Keeping the greenhouse warm

My improvised efforts to keep the greenhouse warm appear to be working out. In a week where the outside temperature dropped to 4F, the temperature in the greenhouse has not dropped below 45, and the soil temperature has stayed between 55 and 70. Heat for the greenhouse has consumed 167 kWh since March 20 for an average cost of around a dollar a day.

There is now enough spinach and romaine for daily salads. Tomatoes have recovered from transplant shock and are now growing visibly each day. Only about half of the radishes have emerged, probably because I used last year's seed. I replanted in the empty spaces between the radishes that have already emerged and I planted a short triple row on the other side of the greehouse this morning.

There has been no evidence of carrots sprouting, but I had noticed a large population of ants when I lifted the cover boards. I had been thinking that the ants hauled off all the carrot seeds. But this morning when I checked again, I noticed a number of small, neatly spaced plants coming up. These look like carrots. Carrots should emerge in 14-21 days. Today is the 16th day, so I am going to wait until next Friday before I replant those.

Cold outside. There was about 1/2" of snow overnight, but it is mostly gone now (11:30 A.M) I need to work over the outside beds where some of the grass and a number of weeds have begun to appear. I will do this later in the week after I pick up a roll of plastic film. I need to dig up the beds and then solarize them for a few weeks to kill off the weeds. If I get this done by next weekend, I will be in good shape.

I am putting a lot off until next weekend, but it is a four day weekend, so if the weather allows, I should be fine.

My seed starting is going well. 24 of 30 tomato plants that have out grown the Jiffy flat. 17 of 18 peppers are doing well. All of the herbs are up except the rosemary, which may take up to 21 days to sprout.

I started 72 more herbs at school on Tuesday, March 31, Dill, Oregano, Mint, Savory, Cilantro, and Rosemary. Some of them had sprouted by Friday.