Spring? Not yet.

It snowed last night - the ultimate insult to a gardener convinced that spring has sprung.  Last week it was in the 60's with sun one day and rain the next so I was able to work-in a little outdoor time.  I planted two 10' rows of snow peas in my home raised bed on Friday and ~200' of snow peas in double rows at Jim's on Saturday, two pounds total.  A second 10' raised bed was planted on Sunday with a variety of lettuce, spinach, and swiss chard.  And after a light rain the day before, on Wednesday I put in 100' of Red Norland potatoes at Jim's.  The rhubarb Jim and I planted last year along the northern edge of the field is coming up nicely.  Its still too soon to tell how many of the 200 or so plants survived the winter.

Most of last Saturday was spent pampering our IH Farmall 400 tractor.  Every reservoir of oil was changed including the gear case which my father swears hasn't been done in over 30 years.  The spark plugs were also changed after 30+ years of service.  The 12v change from 6v last year made starting the tractor much easier but with the recent spark plug change, I've never known that tractor to start so easily.  I drove the tractor from dad's place over to Jim's Friday evening.

Will told me yesterday he's heading down to Berlin over the weekend so I'm putting together another order from Berlin Seed Co.

Due to the off-and-on rain this week and now the snow, I have doubts about being able to plant the Lacey malting barley in Early April, the field is a soaked sponge right now.  At least the winter wheat is a happy carpet of green.

Getting Out

The weather was beautiful last week and I tried to spend as much time outdoors as possible.  My brother, son and I drove down to Amish Country on Monday on a quest for a heavy hoe.  Not the cheap flimsy kind with a short handle and the blade that bends on any soil firmer than peat.  I mean the kind with a fat long handle and a wide forged 3lb blade made for serious ground chopping.  Unfortunately, no hardware store carried on in stock.  I bought a nice stainless steel garden fork so the trip wasn't a complete waste.  A quick search on the internet located EasyDigging.com where I ordered two heavy hoes recommended by Gene Logsdon.  They arrived on Wednesday with some assembly required but I couldn't be happier with the quality and easy of use.

While on the hoe quest Monday we stumbled upon Berlin Seeds on County Road 77 east of Berlin, OH.  I stopped in and picked up a catalog and after flipping through it all week I was ready to go back so on Friday Will, Owen and I drove down and purchased potatoes, peas, and a few other things.  Let spring gardening begin!

I dropped Will off at his house and then went home and left Owen asleep in the truck for over an hour while I trundled manure and compost from the pile to the garden.  I managed to work up 1/4 of the garden in preparation for planting before Owen woke up and I had to get ready for meetings Friday night.  All-in-all, last week was a good opener to spring.

Starting Herbs

I've never started herbs from seed.  Local nurseries have made a fortune off of me in the past with my pension for impulse herb buying.  Last year the herbs finally got their own 5'x5' raised bed instead of being squeezed into some unused corner of the garden.  We sold quite a few herbs at the farmer's market last year but I still ended up keeping two flats of sage and thyme.  I set the trays in the herb garden for easy watering and by the end of last season the roots had grown through the tray and are now firmly anchoring them to the ground.  Ooops! 

So yesterday I started some herbs:

26 Parsley
26 Oregano
14 Cilantro
14 Basil, Sweet Genovese
12 Basil, Opal Purple Varigated
12 Fennel

I placed the starting flats in a tray so they can be watered from the bottom.  The tray is on the top shelf of the greenhouse over the heating pad.  The nighttime soil temperature hovered around 80' so they should be off to a good start.

Season Begins

Last week's snowman is still partially standing in the front yard but the bright sun and temps in the 40's (maybe even 50 tomorrow!) tells me that spring is just around the corner.  Every year around this time I begin preparations for gardening season.  Earlier last week I set out a plastic bin full of frozen compost I shoveled from the bottom of the compost bin.  An old storm window laid over the top has gradually warmed the nutriet rich soil after a couple of days in the intense sunshine.  Yesterday, I filled five 128 cell planting trays with the heated compost and brought them inside.  My son Owen helped me assemble a 3-shelf indoor greenhouse and In the past two days I've started:

128 Calabrese Broccoli
128 Walla Walla Onion
128 White Bunching Onion
128 Yellow Globe Onion
32 Early Jersey Wakefield Cabbage
32 Bok Choy Cabbage
32 Copenhagen Cabbage
32 Golden Acre Cabbage

Last year I utilized a common medical heating pad set to low temperature to gently and evenly heat the starting trays.  The problem was that it also increased evaporation and it was difficult to keep them consistently moist.  I think the greenhouse will solve that problem but time will tell.

I stopped by the Farm (Jim's house) to pickup all the seeds left over from last year and then spent a hour this afternoon sorting through them.  Even though they are 1-2 years old I expect the germination rate to be alright.  Actually, I have so many seeds left from last year that buying more this year doesn't seem necessary.  But where's the fun in that?  I love variety.  With all the gardening activity going on in Oberlin this year I won't have any problem giving away unused seeds.  I went a little over board last year so maybe this year I'll try to practice some restraint.