For all of the melt-off’s magical moments—garlic tips emerging and big puddles that look like tiny seas—there are mild melt-off concerns as well. About one third of the garlic beds have been fully submerged for nearly two days now, and may stay that way for 2-3-4 more, especially if it rains tomorrow as promised. (This area usually doesn’t get flooded with runoff, but I should’ve paid attention to the natural gully and not rotated the garlic there, just in case.) I doubt being underwater for a while will affect the garlic, but I don’t know for sure… How long garlic can hold its breath is another thing I’ll soon find out! And elsewhere, I discovered the handiwork of VOLES (it had to be them) in the herb patch. Under cover of snow, they’d neatly excavated 25′ feet of parsley roots, methodically working their way down the double row. These aren’t tunnels, just holes that go down about a hand’s length. Interesting. Another first. And no loss. But could this be population explosion year in the local vole cycle? Last year’s spring lettuce raids in the greenhouse were nothing compared to organized action like this… Good thing they don’t like garlic!
Month: April 2008
Melt-off complete!
Well, it’s done! Four days of steady melting, from Saturday to late this afternoon, and the main snow coverage, which had been up to a foot (30cm) deep in parts of the field on Friday, is gone. The small pics are from Saturday, Sunday and Monday late afternoon. Huge puddles remain today, twice the usual of the last three years, and they’ll take more than the usual couple of days to seep away. There’s a big pile of snow this side of the greenhouse, shouldn’t have plowed that snowbank there, I’ll probably break it up with the Kubota compact tractor. And there’s the remains along the fence line, that shrinks at its own slow, protected pace. For most of the garden, drying out is underway. Cool!
Greenhouse growing
With the warmer weather of the last few days, things are moving along a little quicker in the greenhouse. The patch of arugula transplanted so long ago is finally starting to fill in new, full-size, TASTY leaves. And the all-lettuce mesclun, direct seeded two weeks ago, has been appearing. Even though days in the greenhouse have been way warm for weeks, the frigid nights really slowed down growth. Warmer nights mean faster greenhouse action!
Drying out
Muted browns and greens are the colors of drying out. The wait for the snow to go is over, now, it’s waiting for the soggy soil to dry enough to till. Until then, there’s not much to do in the field other than walkaround and lookat future things to do. Lots of rock picking, lots of tilling in winter-killed crop residue (kale, Brussels sprouts, etc) and cover crops. Hoses to repair and run. PEAS to seed… I moved a couple of trays of onions and a tray of parsley to the greenhouse today, to see how they’ll do. No reason not to’ve moved all of them out, but, well, the rest can wait a couple more days, it’s supposed to be subzero the next few nights. The giant puddle that had nearly half the garlic underwater was gone by this morning…and the garlic under there was doing better than in the rest of the beds! That’s interesting, probably a combination of them stretching for more light, and the accumulated extra nutrients from being in a runoff collection spot. But it COULD have to do with just being underwater for a while. A discovery? Flood your garlic patch like a…rice paddy? Well, maybe not…
Freezing rain
You hear quite a lot of “freezing rain” warnings over the course a year around here, but it’s something you seldom actually SEE. If you’re driving, it means treacherous invisible ice on the roads. Otherwise, it seems like…rain. This morning, the freezing rain was a little more interesting, a fairly fine, steady drizzle that more or less froze to most surfaces on contact, coating them with ice. Here’s how it looked through the glass window of the east-facing greenhouse door. Outside, that’s the farm stand (reflected, that’s me, hooded, and the hoophouse ribs)… If you’ve ever played with Photoshop, this is the REAL version of one of the basic special effects—except here you can’t play with the settings… ;) Kinda cool, and the sort of thing you pay attention to when you’re obsessively watching the weather forecasts, waiting for the rainy, cloudy cold snap to break (Tuesday?!) so the field can dry out, so you can get on with tilling, and seed those first PEAS already. Freezing rain!!!
Hanging in the greenhouse
A couple of days ago, I moved out four trays from the Milkhouse to the greenhouse: parsley, leek, onion, leek. I made a quick frame to keep the row cover off the alliums. Although it’s been just below zero for the last couple of nights, they probably didn’t need the protection. They’re doing fine. All around, it may look a bit of a mess, but everything is actually sorted out and ready to be put away… Soon. Everything seems to be going in slow motion lately. Maybe it’s the extra attention from blogging—writing about waiting and reading about waiting—that makes all of this waiting on the next turn of the weather seem so painfully slow. And right now, there’s LOTS to do… Life imitates blog? :)
Seedlings everywhere!
Seedlings are everywhere. The first set of tomatoes is putting on its hairy true leaves: that’s a Striped German in the pic. With Lynn honing her new putting-seeds-in- plug-sheets skills today, the early seedling starts are just about done. From the top (the end of January), that includes lettuce, rosemary, leek, parsley, peppers, eggplant, onion, celery, celeriac, tomato, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, collards, tomatillo and Brussels sprouts. Between the Milkhouse and the greenhouse, there are about 40 trays of plug sheets going. Most have 72 cells, and there are a few 128’s and 200’s. The seedling grand total so far is somewhere around 3,000. Actually, that’s the cell total, and many have two or more seedlings per, some to be thinned or divided, or else transplanted together. So, maybe 3,500 seedlings. I’ll start a few more veggies tomorrow, another 500 seedlings on the way, and that’ll be it for now. The most ever, although the number is kinda meaningless, except as a measure of the space they take up, since one tomato will produce for the season, while a cauliflower is off with its head and it’s done… Timing wasn’t great on a bunch of the starts, I waited in some cases 2-3 weeks later than I could’ve, which means transplanting out smaller or…later. This wasn’t meticulously planned, I was just playing off the weather (cold April forecast…that doesn’t seem to be happening anymore) and not wanting to be stuck with lots of overgrown seedlings. And, I’m always trying to reduce overall seedling time by seeing how late I can go… Anyhow, it’s about five weeks to average last frost. In another week, I’ll start the last wave, the CUCURBITS: summer and winter squash, pumpkin, cucumber, melons. They go directly into 3″ pots, usually take 3-4 weeks to get to transplant stage, and absolutely want HEAT, especially, toasty soil, when they hit the field. OUTSIDE, it’s getting warm!!!!
