St. Patrick's Day is the day I plant out my cabbages. Or as close to it as I can get, if I have to work or something on March 17. This year, however, despite the cabbages in the bathroom looking like this:
I am not going to be planting them out on March 17. Or March 18. Or March 19. And that is because St. Patrick's Day this year is going to be ushering in some very cold nights, followed by what looks to be some significant snow.
Not the best introduction to the great outdoors for plants that have been kept coddled and warm their entire lives thus far. They'll be staying put for awhile.
Anyway.
I also may run into some trouble with the seeds I planted. Besides the lettuce, radishes, and carrots I showed you by the wall last week, A. and I took advantage of some very warm days during our Spring Break last week to prepare some other beds and plant parsnips, radishes*, rutabagas, beets, and more carrots.
I am crossing my fingers that those seeds stay sleeping below ground for at least another week. Although those plants can take a light frost, new seedlings of any kind are not going to survive overnight temperatures in the low twenties.
* The MiL taught me years ago to interplant radish seeds with parsnip seeds. The radishes come up within days, whereas parsnips can take weeks to germinate. So the radishes mark the row where the parsnips are, you get two crops out of one row, and pulling out the radishes can help thin the parsnips.
I'm in charge of the garden club at work and this is a good reminder to send out this year's membership forms. I'm sure the current members have been out prepping their plots and we have a couple of folks that garden year-round with row covers. I'm hoping to set up a raised bed in the corner of someone else's plot, but I'm not planning to do that until late April or May--let's say before Memorial Day. Most of what I want to grow requires heat, so I'm in no rush.
ReplyDeleteI’m doing winter sowing outside in milk jugs.
ReplyDeleteI see lots of green coming up inside them....this is my first year to do this.
I will transplant to garden around mid April.
I’m in Oklahoma.
Good job getting yours in early. It is all trial and error in gardening ☀️☀️
From northern Michigan/ zone4 and sometimes 3. We still have snow so i am planning but not planting yet even inside. We don't plant outside till late may. Cucs not till early june. This winter we had to have a new septic system installed so most of the yard is dug up waiting for a good thaw so the company can come back and smooth it out and plant grass again. In that process my garden got flattened and will need to be redone elsewhere this year. I might be a year of just things in pots. We shall see.
ReplyDeleteHello from the beautiful Willamette Valley, Oregon. Zone 8. I am right up against the coastal mountain range, receive a great amount of rain, coastal wind every afternoon and are quite moderate in temperature range. I have a one acre garden with 18 raised beds, a 80 x 100' tilled plot, a 16 x 14 greenhouse, raspberries, strawberries, marionberries, grapes and asparagus plot.
ReplyDeleteI have one bed that is sheltered by a tool shed and it is hooped. I grow chard, romaine lettuce, broccoli, radishes, carrots and cabbage. Our lowest temp this winter was 12 and everything survived.
I just took a master gardener clinic and was given this recipe for sowing small seeds.
Lettuce seeds
Carrot seeds
Any seed that is tiny
4 cups water in saucepan
1/2 cup cornstarch
stir and cook over medium heat until gel consistency.
Cool.
Add seeds and stir in seeds.
fill gallon ziploc bag.
Let bag sit on counter for 3-4 days
clip corner of bag and pour into 1/2 inch deep trough of fine soil.