Tiny farming is in a mid-winter slow motion state right now, kinda like the calm before the storm. I don’t have daily livestock chores—I don’t have animals, yet!—and as far as garden activity, I’m waiting. About the only thing visual going on, besides lots of reading and staring at one screen or another, are the early seedlings. Here, the Granada is rapidly putting on color on its way to deep red… Lettuce-watching. Not that there’s little to do. There’s a new grow rack to build, lots of organizing in the Milkhouse and drive shed, materials to source and order, tons of stuff, actually. I could even get an early start on tax-time bookkeeping… Instead, I’m pushing it a bit, savoring leisurely reading for a few days, when there’s a little time!
Love to see fresh salad growing – will you move them outside, or it will grow inside?
They are comming on well, aren’t they.
I think we’re about to go into overdrive here. No seedlings as yet as not having a greenhouse or much indoor space I’m trying to gauge when mine can go outside.
The weather has been mild all winter (although we could still have a cold snap but it’s only got 6 weeks or so to happen). Most mornings there is a touch of ground frost in the shade but daytime temperatures are into double figures, 15°C expected today. Weeds have therefore thrived all winter and the trees are all in bud so it’s a race to get all the pruning done before the buds burst.
Your snow looks beautiful – thankfully though I can’t feel how cold it is :-D
ewa: This lettuce is headed outside, to the formerly unheated greenhouse, around the beginning of March. This year, I’m going to try heating the greenhouse so it doesn’t drop below 38-40°F (4-5°C) at night, and put some things out a month earlier than ever before, first the early lettuce and arugula to be transplanted inside the greenhouse, and a bit later, seedlings to continue growing in plug sheets, waiting to be transplanted.
Deborah: Yeah, timing! I can feel one or two extended blog posts coming up here as I get into making the final timing decisions for starting the main crops, both seedlings and later, direct-seeded stuff. Especially with the unpredictable weather that’s now, for me at least, a given, it’s really a lot of gambling. There are all kinds of factors that I’m just…feeling after a bit more experience (as opposed to only reading about). For example, with seedlings, holding them in containers for too long, even a week or two extra for some crops in some conditions, can really stunt them; after transplanting, they could take weeks to fully decide that they’re indeed out in the wide open and decide to grow on. And even with direct seeded stuff, you can go early, get decent germination, avoid killing weather, and STILL have those crops mature only at about the same time as a planting done two or three weeks later! And you’ve done all that cultivation and general looking out for the early ones for…nothing, really. BUT, if early conditions are good, you have amazingly early first harvests. My, what fun!!!
(I have to laugh, reading some of my posts, like Seed ordering sanity, things may sound terribly complicated to people who haven’t gardened or who are extremely casual about their results. It’s not that hard, really, is it, it’s just a little learning curve. When you start late, there’s a bit of catching up to do! It gets easier and more fun all the time!!)
Awesome pics. I can’t wait until spring with all the fun spring veggies. It has been unseasonably warm here. We have had highs in the 70’s and we hit 80 one day this week. Grasses for grazing are loving it but I know we will have a huge bug problem this year. We never got a hard freeze.
I think learning is life – the day you stop learning is the day you die.
Your seed ordering post would look over the top to someone buying for their garden, where the seed order is a few pounds/dollars/euros. When planting on the scale you do, it makes perfect sense. Not having enough seed and having to order again incurs extra postage charges and the seeds may be sold out, ordering far to many means capital tied up for a year and possible drop in germination rates for following year so extra seed (cost) needed there.
I have to admit I’m still only part way through putting my spreadsheet together – some other work (paid) came in and I spent most of one evening working out why mail merge wouldn’t suppress blank lines even though asked. Arrgh gardening is so much nicer :-D
Ah, Mike, now you’ve done it: revealed that you have a bit of spare time to read…
I’ve just nominated you for an Excellent Blog Award. See my post today. As I’ve mentioned in the past, I absolutely love visiting every morning to see what’s going on at the farm. Thank you.
Oh, yum. At this point in the winter I don’t think I’d have the willpower to leave that alone and let it grow. That right there would be lunch.
Melinda: Thanks!!! I’m really happy you’re enjoying it…
Meg: Thought about that. After a couple of melt-in-your-mouthfuls, though, it’d be over and I’d…regret it! Soon come…!!