In the Greenhouse

We had a week of unseasonable warmth, but now things are a bit more normal for March.  The low last night was 36 degrees.  Tonight will be about the same.  I'm glad I didn't jump the gun on tomatoes, which you can see above are doing pretty well in the greenhouse.  Like last year, I've gone a bit wild on them.  Varieties I have started include Rutgers, Persimmon, Peron Sprayless, Paul Robeson,  Cherokee Purple,  Tomande Hybrid, Ildi, Chocolate Cherry, Yellow, Yellow/Orange Beefsteak, Park Early Challenge Hybrid, Big Beef Hybrid, Red Cherry, and Mortgage Lifter.  That's 14 types of 'maters.

Here is their progress on the hanging rack.  Only one of the types hasn't done very well...the Persimmon Tomatoes.  I'm not sure why, really.  They are in the second level down from the top.

Other things are doing well.  In the foreground are Brussel Sprouts.  In the background is Chinese Cabbage.
The rest of the plants I have in the greehouse include Mammoth Sunflowers, Moulin Rouge Sunflowers, Cantaloupe, Red Watermelon, Yellow Watermelon,  Genovese Basil,  Lemon Basil, Eggplant, Broccoli, Kung Pao Pepper, Orange Bell Pepper, Thai Bird Peppers, Asparagus, Onions, Impatiens, and Cauliflower.

Above is the Genovese Basil, doing quite nicely.  I haven't had any luck germinating cabbage seed or Altris Pepper Seed.  The Altris seed is home-harvested seed from hybrid plants I grew last year..  I wasn't sure if they would germinate to start with.  The cabbage was from packaged seed.  I'll try sowing directly into the garden with them.

I started using a new system to germinate seed and grow seedlings.  We saved empty toilet paper rolls.  I fill them with moistened seed starting mix, and put them in larger plastic planters, which I have in quantity thanks to my parents.  Insert seeds, cover with clear plastic wrap, and remove it when little green leaves start to show.  I will be able to plant the tubes directly into the garden with minimal stress to the plant, and if I leave just a bit of the TP roll above the dirt level, it will bar cutworms from attacking the seedling.

Tilling and First Plantings

It was a big weekend for the garden.  Last week my manure supplier and I connected.  I loaded the Pathfinder with as much horse poop as I could without the springs riding on the axle.  Jacob helped wheelbarrow it to the garden once I got home.  I also put one load of very fresh stuff into the compost.

I tilled once last Sunday, mixing in compost, granulated limestone, and peat moss.  The second pass was yesterday, working in the manure.  Today was the final till for half the garden.  I'll hit the other half next weekend.  Tilling was a big deal the past two years, but this year it was drama-free.  It took a little while to get the tiller started the first time this season, but once fresh gas was flowing through it, it did great.  It takes about an hour to till the garden once.  This afternoon I made seed beds...which is new for me.  The past two years, I would till, rake, and then cut rows a foot apart with a hoe.  However, walking between the rows compacts the soil, and I wanted to try out planting denser than my foot-spaced rows.

So, I dug trenches every 4 feet, piling the soil from the trench onto the bed to the right of the trench.  Then I carefully raked the surface of the bed to flatten it, bust up dirt clods, and remove crabgrass roots.  I divided each bed into 4 rectangles and planted one type of seed into each rectangle.  I used a broom handle to make furrows on the top of the seed bed, spaced only as far apart as the seed packet says the final plants should be...this winds up being about 6 inches at most, often closer depending on the plant.  Today I was able to get radishes, lettuce, spinach, beets, green onions, mustard greens, turnips, and carrots in the ground.  These are all cold-tolerant and can be planted two or three weeks prior to the last expected frost date.

I'm pleased I got seeds in the garden this weekend.  I'd planned on waiting a week, but after going through my seeds yesterday, it was clear that I had plenty of frost-hardy seeds to get in the ground.  We had great weather for it, too - I took that as a sign.

Harvesting the Compost

A year ago, my son Jacob and I chopped up a massive pile of leaves and old garden waste, mixed it with kitchen scraps and a little manure, and layered it together to hopefully cook into compost.  Yesterday I harvested the pile.

In the fall, I'd stacked plant stalks on top of the compost.  I moved all that stuff, and this is what was underneath.  This compost was dark, rich, and crumbly  It smelled earthy and clean.  Except for some of the outer edges, the whole thing had decomposed uniformly.  As I was shoveling it into the wheelbarrow, I came across something odd.

In two different locations, deep in the compost pile, there were these nests of earthworms, two slimy balls of them, all intertwined together.  Now there were lots of worms throughout the pile, but in these two places, there were knots of them.  Weird.

The pile produced 9 wheelbarrow loads of compost.  My wheelbarrow holds 8 cubic feet of stuff...that's a lot of compost.

I dumped the wheelbarrow loads in the garden.  When I was done, I got this year's pile started, layering chopped up plant stalks, leaves, and grass clippings together.  Toss in a little of last year's compost as a starter, and we should be in business once the weather warms up some more.

Next step for soil prep is raking the compost evenly over the garden, along with some peat moss.  Then till.

Greenhouse in full swing

I've used up a lot of seed starting mix.  Basically everything that I wanted to start is in pots in the greenhouse.

So here is the east side of the greenhouse.  Lots of little green things.  Sunflowers are in the back corner.

These are all tomato plants, most of them are from seed my Aunt Sharon asked me to start.  The bottom row is Cherokee Purple.  Last year I only has 4 plants in the garden, but there will be more this year.  They are delicious.  I actually wish I had another one of these racks.  Just like going vertical in the garden can increase yield, this rack allows me to maximize space in the greenhouse.

This is the west side of the greenhouse.  Most of these seeds haven't sprouted yet, just because they went into pots after the stuff on the other side.  Angelia gave me Giant Sequoia Tree seeds for Valentines Day, those are in the closest pot.  The instructions had me rub the seeds on sandpaper to help open the seed coat so that water can get to the seed.  Fingers crossed.