Below The Freshly Fallen Snow

6w4d

Six weeks and four days until last frost. It's 25F, sunny and beautiful out right now.

I planted today:

-tomato seeds

-zinnia seeds

-cosmos seeds

Weather

Highs in the low 30s, lows in the low teens.

We'll see how the seeds that I planted outdoors like cold weather.

My bigger worry is actually the thriving bunny population. I really don't want a bunny fence, but I see a lot of bunny prints in the fresh snow.

Winter Again

Crocuses Blooming

Today I walked out to my garden and had yellow, white, and purple crocuses blooming. So I went in and grabbed my camera. Then I got distracted and grabbed a bunch of seeds and the camera. Then I planted a bunch of seeds. And, when I looked over, the sky had become cloudy and my crocuses were closed! I took one picture anyway:

Closed crocus.

I looked through all of my seed packets and grabbed every one that said, "plant as soon as the soil is workable."

Counter-clockwise, this is what I planted:

Corn salad

Sugar sprint snap pea

Sugar daddy pea

Bordeaux hybrid spinach

Super sugar snap pea

Wild garden lettuce mix

Miners lettuce*/Cherry belle radish (south) & Roma II bush bean & Edamame soybean (north)

Cherry belle radish (south) & Roma II bush bean** & Edamame soybean (north)

Blue curled vates kale** & purple top white globe turnip & scarlet nantes carrot**

Early snowball cauliflower & scarlet nantes carrot**

Early vienna white & purple kohlrabi & scarlet nantes carrot**

*I didn't plant many Miner's lettuce seeds because I'm running low and want to do a second planting.

**These seeds were all old so I'm not expecting high/any germination. I just dumped them in to use up the old packets.

Spring Emerging Green

I am emotionally prepared for the fact that spring comes in March, if you're looking for it. But, what I wasn't prepared for was the speed with which the green emerged. Just last week, these patches of dirt were covered in inches of snow. And, today, the snow is mostly gone and the crocuses, tulips, pansies, onions have emerged. It still shocks me a little to see that strawberry leaves are amongst the first to turn green.

The snow has mostly melted.

My garden looks brown from a distance, but, up close, it is growing like crazy.

Pansy & tulips.

Fall crocuses & spring crocuses.

Quiet in the greenhouse. But not for long, I suspect.

The first little seedling.

Compared to Last Year

Just for comparison, the pictures on the left are last year and the pictures on the right are this year.

3/11/10 and 3/14/11

3/18/10 and 3/14/11

Greenhouse Time

There has been some rearranging in the greenhouse.

My old greenhouse plot was in the foreground on the right.

My new greenhouse plot is in the foreground on the left.

As you can see, I planted it with the first of the cold-tolerant greens today.

Here's what I planted (from left to right):

-Spinach

-Miner's Lettuce

-Corn Salad

-Lettuce Mix

Looking in the greenhouse.

More!

On a whim, I planted seeds for:

Early spring greens - lettuce mix, miner's lettuce, and corn salad.

Marigolds

Basil

I've never started lettuce indoors and I've never grown miner's lettuce or corn salad.

Eight Weeks to Last Frost

It's eight weeks (plus two days) until last frost today.

The weather forecast is looking great for this coming week with temperatures in the 40-50s. I'm thinking about going out to the greenhouse to plant seeds for my early greens.

I'm debating planting marigold seeds (just because I like having the flowers inside) and basil seeds (to get a head start on the season).

I fertilized a few days ago. I haven't previously been attentive to fertilizing seedlings, but have read that, once they get true leaves, they benefit from a little fertilizer.

The grow rack today.

Celeriac seedlings in the foreground.

Today I planted seeds for:

-Cabbage - Earliana, red acre, early jersey wakefield, premium flat dutch late.

-Cauliflower - just one: early snowball.

-Peppers - bella hot, carnival mix, thai dragon.

-Flowers - forget-me-not (annual & biennial), penstemon, impatiens, vinca, bells of ireland.

-Okra - red burgundy

The onion seedlings got their first haircut.

Lupine seeds soaking. These seeds are OLD, I think they're from 2002 or so, so I expect low/no germination.