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Transplanting & Prepping For Cold

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 17:47:00 -0500

We have been enjoying a rather balmy spring so far, but the weather forecast for the next several days is for a sudden shift to much colder weather. This is a typical early spring condition - with abrupt changes in weather that can catch the inattentive gardener by surprise. To extend the spring season successfully, you have to watch the forecasts and take action as needed to protect young plants from dramatic dips in temperature.

All of the plants in the greenhouse are cold hardy and protected adequately by the greenhouse envelope with the exception of the super early tomatoes (Siletz) that I have recently moved out to the greenhouse. I have been transporting them indoors at night and taking them back out to the greenhouse in the early morning, so they will be fine with the forecasted weather change. The super early tomatoes are really growing well and seem to be happy with the extra attention and handling they are getting. They are on the right in the first picture below. Next to them is the sugar snap peas (Cascadia) and lettuces (Super Gourmet Blend) that I seeded yesterday – covered with a humidity dome. The tray to the far left has the broccoli, swiss chard, and celery starts. These tomatoes were started January 22nd and are being given extra care and protection so that they will (hopefully) produce a very early crop of tomatoes for me. They will ultimately be planted in my 4 large black containers and will reside in the greenhouse until the weather really warms up and then move outside to continue growing.

For comparison, the majority of my tomato plants were started three weeks later on February 13th and they look like this right now.

Today I transplanted kale (Siberian Improved), pac choi (Ching Chiang), and cabbages (Savoy Ace and Tronchuda) into the garden. They took up one 4 foot by 4 foot section in the garden bed. They don’t look like much right now, but they will not take long to get established.

Because we have some cold weather forecasted, it was important to get a grow tunnel cover erected over this newly planted bed. I actually covered another 8 feet of bed in addition because I intend to plant the broccoli there in about two weeks and want the soil warmed up ahead of time for that.

The last thing I needed to do today in preparation for the coming cold, was to cover the onion starts I planted out yesterday. They are in a bed that does not work well for the grow tunnel covers, so I improvised using some of my tall tomato ladders, a panel of stiff wire grid (part of my compost bin sides), a few spring clamps, and plastic sheeting.

I will leave these in place until the weather warms back up and is forecasted to stay that way for the foreseeable future. Those of you who follow my blog regularly are used to seeing me use these tomato towers frequently for many purposes beyond their intended role as a support for tomatoes. I find them quite useful to have around!

I think everything is buttoned up for the cold front that is moving in and hopefully the warm weather will return shortly thereafter.

Onions & Early Spring Greens

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 18:38:00 -0500

It was a beautiful sunny day today. Took advantage of it and spent a fair amount of time out in the garden and greenhouse. A quick inspection this morning revealed that the spinach I direct seeded on February 14th are up. I took the grow tunnel cover off of the bed for most of the day to allow the very small plants to enjoy some unfiltered sunshine. I put it back on around 2:30 pm so that it had time to warm up inside before the sun went down for the day.

One of the tasks I wanted to get done this weekend is the planting out of the onions. I have Walla Walla and Candy onion plants I had started back in January that were ready for transplanting. In addition, my onion sets (red and yellow onions) arrived last week and I wanted to get them into the ground as well. I prepped the soil and raked it smooth and then used my 4-inch spaced planting jig to mark the planting area. I got all the onions planted and still had a section about 3 feet by 4 feet left open in the bed that I then planted with a second sowing of spinach (Bloomsdale Savoy). Here’s a picture of the Walla Walla onions after I transplanted them.

This same bed has the Elephant garlic and regular garlic (Inchelium Red) growing in it.

I also wanted to start some more lettuces and the sugar snap peas (Cascadia) this weekend. However, the bed that the sugar snap peas will go into is still largely in shade much of the day and the soil is quite cool as a result. Rather than wait, I decided to plant the seeds into cell packs and get them started in the greenhouse. In a few weeks when they are ready for transplanting, the soil should have warmed up enough in that bed that they will then thrive. The greenhouse is a great place for plants at the moment as the sun is now high enough on the horizon that it is clearing the tall trees surrounding our property and hitting the greenhouse pretty regularly for a large portion of the day. The result is a significant increase in temps in the greenhouse. The plants inside the greenhouse are basking in the sun exposure. The young pac choi is settling in after transplanting and putting on some growth.

The mache is almost ready to begin harvesting finally.

And, the Chinese cabbages are forming up tall heads.

Tomorrow, the weather is not forecasted to be quite as nice but still good. I am hoping to plant out (under cover) the cabbages (Savoy Ace and Tronchuda), the second round of pac choi (Ching Chiang) and some lettuces (Merlot).

I hope you are enjoying some time in your garden or among your seedlings this weekend.

Increasing Sun Intensity

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 23:14:00 -0500

The strength and length of available sun is obviously ramping up significantly. In addition, the arc of the sun in the sky has moved higher such that the sun is now starting to clear the tall trees that surround our property occassionally. The greenhouse and back garden beds in particular are showing real appreciation for the infusion of solar energy. The greenhouse plantings and trays of seedlings have just taken off this week. In fact, I need to harvest the kale plantings soon and the onion seedlings really should be planted out into the garden this coming weekend. A sure sign that spring has really arrived - is the rhubarb is up in force.

I found the first spear of asparagus poking through the soil this past weekend too! It’s small and does not show up well in a photo, but like the rhubarb it makes me happy as they are the first substantial crops of the early spring garden.

The replacement raspberry plants were supposed to arrive on Friday but did not. With my husband’s help we forged ahead despite that to largely finish up the raspberry patch rejuvenation project on Saturday. The big thing still on the to do list (besides planting the replacement plants) was to construct the supports for the raspberry beds. Together we got them constructed and installed in no time at all.

Today, the raspberry plants finally arrived and I made a point to leave work on time so I could get home before dark and plant them up. No pictures to share because it was getting dark by the time I finished, but they are all in. Now the only task I have left to do on this spring project is to reinstall the drip irrigation hose down the bed of raspberries. Hopefully these newest bare root plants will all break dormancy and help fill in the missing portions of the raspberry bed.

It’s a good thing the early spring crops are taking hold and starting to produce. The inventory of freezer items from the garden is getting down to a low level because we have been leaning on them so hard for months now. The canned items are less depleted overall but certain items (like dilly green beans) have long been used up. The pickled peppers on the other hand have been hardly touched. They taste great but honestly, we prefer diced frozen (roasted and raw) peppers and I am having a hard time finding ways to work them into our menus. If you have any great ideas to share on this – I would love to hear them. The late fall/winter crops are essentially done for the year with the exception that I still have some over wintered carrots to harvest, and there are parsnips still in the ground too - but they are going to seed and need to just be pulled. I think the preserved supply level was just about right this year and we have not been wanting for much of anything as a result. The only storage/preserved crop that is running out far too soon this year are the onions. 2009 was a rather bad production year for onions for some reason. We used up the storage onions a while ago and have been using my freezer supply of diced onions but they too are fast running out and the green onions in the garden and greenhouse are still too small yet to harvest. We may have to actually reduce down (possibly even stop) the onion usage for cooking for a while. Now that is a true hardship because I use onions in just about everything I cook it seems. Hopefully the green onions will get a kick-start from the increasing sun energy and I will not have to endure the onion drought for too long. To avoid having this problem in 2010, I am planting significantly more onions and hedging my bets by planting not only onions started from seeds, but also sets, and my usual multiplier onion patch as well. Keep your fingers crossed for me that 2010 is a better onion year altogether.

Got any good ideas on how to incorporate pickled peppers into our evening meals?

Rainwater, Birds, Repairs, Lighting Needs, and Seedlings

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 19:05:00 -0500

Grey wet day today ending a week of grey and wet conditions. The heavy rains gave me some grief earlier in the week. I had my horizontal pea support structure covered with clear plastic to help warm the seedbed and keep predators out. Unfortunately, it had a flat surface area, which collected large amounts of the heavy rainwater - causing breakage and a collapse of several of the support posts. I pulled the plastic cover off midweek to try and avoid any further damage but unfortunately it left the sprouting pea seeds exposed to bird predation. I found evidence this morning of empty seed coats scattered about which looks to me like birds enjoyed some nice pea sprouts and left the tough coating behind. Not sure how much I lost to the birds but it was obvious I needed to do two things 1) fix the trellis supports; and 2) get another cover on the bed – but this time it needed to be one that would not create the problems that the clear plastic did.

Here’s the bed this morning. There were three posts that were broken by the weight of the pooled water in the plastic covering.

I picked up some replacement ¾ inch square 3-foot long pieces of wood doweling during my lunch break on Friday so I would be ready today to make the necessary repairs. It was a simple matter to remove the hook eyes from the broken posts and place them on the new posts. The new posts were then inserted into the structure. Repair completed!

The second step was to get it covered again so that I could stop the bird carnage. Rather than use plastic this time, I pulled some reemay fabric out of the shop storage area and placed it over the entire structure. I have a big roll of this stuff but almost never use it. I am hoping it provides protection and insulation and that with it being porous that it will allow the rainwater to drain through and not puddle.

It sort of looks like a Christmas package all bundled up – but I think this will work fairly well. The real question now… is how much did I lose to the birds? If it was too excessive, I may have to reseed the entire bed. Going to just wait and see what emerges before taking any further action.

Once the pea patch repairs were completed, I turned my attention to the seed starts. I was planning to start the peppers and basil this weekend, but despite juggling the seed trays around – I just don’t have room for them right now under the big grow light set up with the heat mat. After thinking about it for a while, I have decided to go ahead and purchase a tabletop light stand and heat mat to provide for my peak season overflow needs. I have been doing without for some time now and am ready to give in and purchase a second smaller set up. I really love my Goliath light stand (my primary set up) and am not interested in replacing it to go much bigger, but by adding a tabletop set up I can augment it for the high season of seed starting. I placed the order today and hopefully will have my new lights by next weekend. I will just postpone starting the peppers and basil for one week until it arrives.

I did do some seedling care this morning. All of the trays of seedlings were thoroughly bottom watered. I then used scissors to trim the tops of my onion seedlings and to remove extra seedlings from the seed trays – leaving only the strongest plant in each cell. I moved the Merlot lettuces, Ching Chiang pac choi, Improved Dwarf Siberian kale, and Tronchuda and Savoy Ace Cabbages from the shop to the greenhouse. The onions were moved out there last weekend. I made some temporary staging out of two short saw horses and 2’x2’ plywood board in the greenhouse and placed the trays of seedlings on that.

The greenhouse is starting to get busy again.

The top left half-barrel planter has the Chinese cabbages and kale that were started back in mid December. They are quite happy in their permanent home in the greenhouse. The middle half-barrel has the mache growing in it and the top right half-barrel planter has the pac choi that I planted up last weekend. In the planters to the right are onions and the lettuces that I planted up last weekend also. The little planter to the left is my cat Sid’s catnip plant. It has been over wintering in the green house. Sid begs to get into the greenhouse so he can go visit his catnip plant! Out of the picture to the far left is the temporary staging I set up with the seedling trays.

Despite the grey skies today, we went for a nice hike in the woods mid day. Frogs croaking, birds declaring their territory, buds swelling, and leaves unfurling – heralds of springs arrival were all around us. Tomorrow is supposed to be a little nicer weather and I am hoping to finish constructing the raspberry bed supports. Unfortunately, the raspberry bare root plants did not arrive on Friday as expected so I will probably be planting them in the dark after work next week.

Keep your fingers crossed for me that the birds did not eat too many of my pea seeds this past week.

Mid Week Garden News

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 23:02:00 -0500

It’s Wednesday and time for my customary mid-week blog entry. Nothing overly exciting to update you on but I do have a few little bits of garden related news to share.

First, I received an email on Tuesday letting me know that my bare root raspberry plants have shipped and should be here by Friday.
Second, the lettuces, kale, and pac choi that I planted out in the greenhouse last weekend are all doing fine.
Third, the horizontal pea trellis support I erected on Sunday suffered some damage earlier this week. I had placed a plastic cover over the whole structure and we had some heavy rain on Monday night, which pooled on the flat top of the structure and put a lot of weight on the rather flimsy end supports. Two of them gave way and broke. They are easily replaced and I will pick up the wood and take care of it this weekend. Hoop covers definitely work better in rainy weather as the rounded tops shed the water when we get heavy rains.
Fourth, the big round of tomato, broccoli, swiss chard, and celery that I started on February 13th is doing really well. Lots of plants have emerged and are growing on.
Finally, the super early tomatoes (Siletz) that I started on January 22nd and the second round of lettuces (Merlot), kale, cabbages, and pac choi that were started January 30th and February 6th have all moved up to the overflow light area… weaning off of bottom heat. The early tomatoes were repotted last weekend and do not seem to have suffered too much from transplant shock.

Here’s some photos I took tonight of the super early tomatoes, lettuce, kale, cabbages, and pac choi.

Everything is progressing along. Hopefully the raspberries will arrive before the weekend, so I can get them planted up in the light of day. How are things going in your garden and seed starting?

Peas, Potatoes, and Pac Choi

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 21:56:00 -0500

With the exception of a 3-week deep freeze in December, our winter has been very mild this year. Because of this, the soil temperatures have warmed up much faster this year and I can legitimately give thought to planting early crops extra early – but only with the added insurance of protective covering to hedge against a sudden reversal of weather fortunes.

I prepared the large 4-foot by 12-foot bed that would hold the pea patch yesterday so that I could take advantage of the forecasted beautiful weather for today (Sunday) to do the actual planting process. Once again, I used my new planting jigs – this time the 2 inch spaced one.

Each square foot has 36 seeds with a 2-inch spacing, so the entire 4-foot by 12-foot bed had a total of 1,728 seeds placed in it! Normally I would block plant a large area like this, but I want to see if the more carefully spaced seeds produce a more productive crop. It took longer to seed the bed then it would have with a block planting approach - about 30 minutes to seed the entire bed with the assistance of my daughter. It would have probably taken about an hour if I had done it all by myself. I think that extra time invested in the planting will produce better results - but only time will tell.

Once the planting was completed, I watered everything thoroughly and then added my horizontal trellis support system (last year’s shop project).

The final step was to top it all off with a protective covering of plastic sheeting.

In addition to the pea planting, I did a few other garden related chores today. First, I laid out all the seed potatoes on flattened cardboard boxes near one of the windows in the shop to encourage them to begin sprouting.

I counted out 176 spuds and I will need 210 pieces for planting, so the larger potatoes will need to be cut. Luckily there are more than enough large sized tubers in the mix to allow that to easily happen.

I also moved the first planting of pac choi and lettuces out to the unheated greenhouse and planted them up. The lettuce was tucked in between the onion plantings and the pac choi took up the third half barrel container.

The mache has been really dawdling along but is now getting some growth going. Hopefully, we will be able to start enjoying some in salads before the end of March.

The Chinese cabbage and the kale plants that I transplanted last weekend are doing really well in their new home in the greenhouse. Hopefully the pac choi will settle in as nicely too.

The greenhouse greens fill in a void during the early spring when the garden is starting to be planted up but is far from providing harvests and after all of the overwintered crops are depleted and removed. Behind these greenhouse crops will come the garden rhubarb and not too long after that - asparagus. In the meantime, we continue to use up the overwintered carrots and parsnips and the last of the overwintered cabbages to supplement our frozen and canned produce.

I hope you were able to do some garden related activities this weekend too.

The Potatoes Have Arrived

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 21:41:00 -0500

What a gorgeous day we had today! It got up to the mid 50’s and everything is breaking dormancy fast. I had to run some errands this morning, so I did not get out into it until after lunchtime - but the few hours I was outside this afternoon was heavenly.

Because we had late blight hit the garden last year, I did not save any of my potatoes for seed stock and chose instead to buy all new certified seed stock this year. I ordered my potatoes from Ronniger Potato Farm LLC because they had a good selection, good reputation, and the best prices. Friday my big box of potatoes arrived; 10 lbs of Yukon Gold; 10 lbs of Caribe; and 25 pounds of Russet Burbank.

The front bag is the Yukon Gold and the back bag is the Caribe and underneath the two bags you can just glimpse the Russet Burbanks. I opened the box and checked them today, but tomorrow when I have a little more time I will lay them out to begin chitting and do a count to see if I will need to cut them into smaller pieces. I am going to use the 4-foot by 32-foot bed for the potatoes this year and will be planting them using the John Jeavon’s method of planting potatoes (done at the same time you double dig a bed) spacing them using a within row spacing of 9 inches and approximately 9 inches deep into the soil. For a 32-foot long bed, I should end up with 42 rows at 9-inch intervals and 5 seed potato pieces per row if spaced 9 inches apart. So my calculations come up that I need 210 to 215 potato seed pieces to do this bed in that manner. These look like really nice seed potatoes and I am anxious to get them set out to begin forming sprouts.

The main task I worked on today was prepping the big 4-foot by 40-foot bed for the beginning of the planting season. Specifically, I used the U-Bar to aerate the entire bed and then did a light cultivation and raking. At the end of the bed, I also worked in some general-purpose organic fertilizer into a 4-foot by 12-foot section of the bed. This area will be the 2010 pea patch and I am planning to plant them tomorrow since the soil temperature is more than warm enough. Here’s the bed after I finished the prep work. The closest end in the photo below is where the pea patch will be going.

Today I also took down the grow tunnel cover from the overwintered bed of carrots and parsnips. You can see it in the photo above. I intend to finish harvesting what remains of these in the next several weeks to clear out the bed for the coming potato crop that will go in that bed. I need to similarly use up the last few January King cabbages from this bed to also get them out of the way for the potatoes.

Other tasks I got to today included taking the U-Bar and gently aerating and fertilizing the raspberry patch – adding a layer of compost on the surface after I was completed. I also rotated the six packs of seedlings in the trays under the grow lights to ensure that plants on the ends get a chance to be in the middle for a while - where they enjoy a more complete exposure to the grow lights. I took the opportunity while swapping the packs around to brush the small seedlings lightly with my hands to help them “sturdy up”.

In the greenhouse, the kale and Chinese cabbages I planted out last weekend are doing well and the slow growing mache is starting to get a move on and produce more vegetation. About the time the carrots and parsnips are finished up, these greens should be ready to start harvesting lightly.

That is it for today. Tomorrow I am going to plant the pea patch and put up my horizontal grow support structure. Forecast is for another gloriously beautiful day so it will be good to have an excuse to be out in it!

Really Getting Underway

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 00:11:00 -0500

I was previously going to wait until the plants emerged from the seeding process before sharing with you my inaugural use of the new planting jig. However, that may take quite a while given it is early spring and the soil is cool (which will slow the germination process down considerably) so rather than wait, I have decided that I will just give you an update later on how things progress with the seedlings and give you the initial report now.

Last Saturday, I gave up on my attempted salvage operation on the bed of overwintered spinach. I had failed to get it covered with a grow tunnel prior to our deep freeze in December and then (to add insult to significant injury!) the marauding rabbit ate most of what remained of the feeble plants. My salvage attempt included covering it with a grow tunnel and giving it a drink of fish emulsion tea. Last weekend, I came to the conclusion that the few plants that had revived were not worth the effort to keep nursing along. I pulled all of the plants out and composted them. The grow tunnel cover had definitely warmed up the soil in that particular section of garden though, and it seemed like a great opportunity to just get a very early jump on the sowing of the spring spinach crop. On Saturday, I did the bed prep necessary to get this 4-foot by 12-foot section of bed ready for direct seeding. I pulled the grow tunnel cover off long enough to do the re-mineralization (greensand and rock phosphate) and to broadcast the bed area with organic all purpose fertilizer. I used a hoe to cultivate it all into the top six inches of soil - removing any remaining plants and weeds as I went. Before putting the grow tunnel cover back on, I raked and watered the bed. Since it has been covered for over a month now, it was getting dried out. The next day I came back and checked the soil temperature in the bed and it was almost 50 degrees at about 10 am. I needed it to be at least 45 degrees before I would consider planting it up with spinach.

So Sunday morning, I did a final smoothing and raking process and used one of my new planting jigs (the four inch spaced one) to plant the spring spinach patch. It is always important when planting seeds directly in the garden to get the seedbed as smooth and clod free as possible.

Before getting underway with the seeding, I brought out the planting jig and my regular 2-foot by 2-foot plywood board that I use for firming in seeds when doing a block planting process.

I used the planting jig to then press out 2-foot by 2-foot sections of 4 inch spaced planting holes down the bed on both sides – 9 spaces per square foot. Each jig impression provided 36 seeding holes and there were 12 of them to cover the entire surface of the 4-foot by 12-foot section of bed, which calculates out to 432 individual planting holes!

I then just placed a seed (sometimes two) in each hole. Once the seeds were in the jig holes, I smoothed the surface slightly with my gloved hand to fill in the top of the holes and then used the 2-foot by 2-foot piece of plywood to firm down and ensure good seed contact with the soil.

The last step was to water the bed well using warm water and then putting the grow tunnel cover back on.

It took me just a half hour to plant up this entire bed and the jig worked beautifully. My only concern is that with smaller seeds (like these spinach seeds) I may be ending up with the seed too deep. I will have to be particularly light handed with the really small seeds like carrots when making the impressions in the soil. All in all though, I am very happy with this design.

So there you have it! The next candidate planting for the new jigs will be the big pea patch for 2010. The soil temp is good enough to plant right now, and the forecast is for a really beautiful weekend coming up so I probably get this underway soon too - using the 2 inch spaced planter for that one. Things are really getting underway now!

Raspberry Patch Rejuvenation - Phase 1

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:04:00 -0500

Last spring we put in a new raspberry patch as part of the big garden expansion project. Ten bare root Heritage raspberries were planted in mid March 2009. We were right in the midst of clearing the expansion site area and constructing new garden beds, so the planting up process was kept to a bare minimum. In fact, we did not even put a support structure in place for the raspberries and opted to use some tomato cages and ladders to support the raspberry canes for the first year instead. The plan was to come back in the fall or following spring and finish up with the support structures. Here’s what they looked like last year when we first planted them up.

And here is what they look like now, just a little less than one year later. The area needs weeding and the canes need a little pruning.

We had fifty percent survival rate on the bare root nursery stock in that five have grown out and five never even broke dormancy. Not very happy with that outcome so this spring when I ordered the five replacement Heritage bare root plants – I went to another source for my nursery stock. Hopefully the next five will have a better success rate.

In addition to replacing the failed plantings and constructing a support structure, there was another problem that revealed itself this past year that also needed correcting. Specifically, the area the bed is planted on is quite sloped and even with drip irrigation it was difficult to keep the plants properly watered because the run off was so severe down the slope. Knowing the replacement bare root plants will be arriving within the next few weeks, I decided to get going on the first phase of rejuvenating this raspberry patch. The focus today was on creating a terraced bed for both rows to correct the slope problem, weeding and grubbing out the beds, and pruning the prior year canes back to the growing points.

I have a stack of timbers behind the shop left over from last year’s garden expansion project. I had been toying with the idea of using them to make beds in the green house but have sinced talked myself out of that idea so these were available to be used for the raspberry patch rejuvenation project.

The temporary supports and drip irrigation line were removed. I then dug out the lower edge of the bed, laid out the timbers and anchored them into the soil using stakes and tamped down dirt. The bed area was then weeded and cultivated and raked level. The last step was to do a quick pruning - taking off dead sections but leaving the one-year-old wood that had growth so that it will produce a summer harvest for us. Here’s how the patch looked when I wrapped up for the afternoon.

Phase 2 of the raspberry bed rejuvenation project will have to wait until after the replacement plants arrive. When they get here, I will plant them out and then fertilize the entire bed, reinstall the drip irrigation line, and put down a thick layer of compost over the beds. The final task will be to then construct the supports for both rows. Got the hardest part of the project completed today and I think they will do much better with this simple fix.

Yesterday I planted up a 4-foot by 12-foot section of garden bed in spinach using one of my new planting jigs. I took pictures as I went but am going to wait to post about it until I am sure it worked as expected – which will be confirmed when the new plants begin emerging. Hopefully within the next several weeks I will have a complete report for you on this.

Do you have any garden “fixes” you are attending to this year?

Rock Minerals and Seedlings

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 21:35:00 -0500

Today was a full day of garden related activity. The weather was not particularly good (off and on rain all day) but I managed to catch the short window of time this morning that it was not raining and got some bed prep work completed that needed to be done. First, I applied rock minerals (greensand and rock phosphate) at the rate of 6 lbs per 100 square feet to all garden beds except for one - which currently has crops planted in it. I will use up the last of my rock mineral supply to do this bed just before I plant it up with potatoes (about a month from now). In addition, I broadcasted plain alfalfa pellets over several beds that previously had a green manure crop but did not have an application of compost. Alfalfa pellets are a good soil conditioner - adding organic matter plus nitrogen and other nutrients too. A 50 lb bag is quite inexpensive and can be purchased at most livestock feed supply stores.

You may recall that about a month ago (January 10th) I attempted a salvage operation on the bed of overwintered spinach. I had failed to get it covered with a grow tunnel prior to our deep freeze in December and then to add insult to significant injury - the marauding rabbit ate most of what remained of the feeble plants. My salvage attempt included covering it with a grow tunnel and giving it a drink of fish emulsion tea. Well, today my assessment was that the few plants that had revived were not worth the effort to keep nursing along. I pulled all of the plants out and composted them. The grow tunnel cover has definitely warmed up the soil in that particular section of garden though and I intend to take advantage of that and do a very early sowing of spring spinach. Today I did the bed prep necessary to get ready for such a direct seeding. I pulled the grow tunnel cover off long enough to do the re-mineralization (greensand and rock phosphate) and to broadcast the bed area with organic all purpose fertilizer. I used a hoe to cultivate it all into the top six inches of soil - removing any remaining plants and weeds as I went. Before putting the grow tunnel cover back on, I raked and watered the bed. Since it has been covered with a grow tunnel for over a month now, it was getting dried out. I will check the soil temperature in the bed tomorrow afternoon and if it looks good (at least 45 degrees) I will plant it up with spinach using one of my new planting jigs (the 4 inch spacing one).

Before I did the bed amendment process, I removed the remaining over wintered kale plants. They were still producing fairly well but I have new kale plants that went into the greenhouse today that will soon be harvestable and these were in the way. The plants provided a nice final harvest and combined with a few fresh harvested carrots made a good addition to tonight's dinner menu.

While I was working in the garden, I noticed that the blueberries and the bush pie cherries have significant bud and bloom swell occurring. These are a few branches of the bush pie cherries.

By the time I finished up with the outside chores it was starting to rain pretty hard and I was getting quite wet. Luckily, the remaining items on my to do list were indoor items. First up, I needed to plant the kale and Chinese cabbages in one of the half-barrel containers in the greenhouse.

Moving these out of the shop to their permanent location in the greenhouse - made room in the shop to do the seedling shuffle necessary to get ready for the next big round of seed starting scheduled for today. The tray of pac choi, lettuces, and onions were moved to the overflow light set up (much smaller and no heat pad) where they will stay for about a week before moving out to the greenhouse to start the hardening off process. With that move, that left only one full tray of other previously started seedlings under the main light setup. This left enough room to add the three full trays of seedlings I started today. Here's a run down of what went into those trays.

Six 6-packs tomato - Celebrity
Two 6-packs tomato - Cherokee Purple
Four 6-packs tomato - Early Girl
Three 6-packs tomato - Fantastic
Two 6-packs tomato - Market Miracle
Seven 6-packs tomato - Oroma
Four 6-packs broccoli - Premium Crop
Two 6-packs celery - Red
Two 6-packs celery - Utah 52-70 Improved
Four 6 packs swiss chard - Bright Lights

The areas under the lights are completely full right now. In about two weeks I will need to start the basil and peppers but by then one of the trays will be ready to rotate out to the overflow light set up and I should be good to go.

I got lots accomplished today and am ready to relax and enjoy an evening of watching the winter Olympics.