More early lettuce. This is Simpson Elite, an improved variety of Black Seeded Simpson, which is a really fast, reliable heirloom from the 1800’s. I grow both. They have thin, delicate, pale green leaves, but they’ve proven tough in heat, drought and cold. And they’re 40-45 days! These seedlings are now about 3-1/2 weeks old. I still haven’t thinned them from two per cell—all the lettuce looks so…pretty, densely bunch in their trays, and they’re stretching a bit, but just this side of really crowding each other. Anyhow, it’s the super-early lettuce…mostly for fun! (This is also my first tryout of the latest new farm tool, a Canon G9…a sturdy, field-ready bit of gear… :)
Lightbox suspended
Another seedling room set-up task checked off today: hanging the lightbox. Not exactly a big job—the chains were already there from last year—but having it in place is a big visual reminder in the Milkhouse that we’re heading into spring. The box, given to me two-three years back, has four 48″ fluorescent tubes on 5″ (12.5cm) spacing. Raised up a bit more, it gives pretty good light to the whole tray, which is about 3.5’x4′ (1×1.2m). It’s been a welcome bit of much-needed space for larger seedlings, though this year, with the barely-heated greenhouse plan, maybe it won’t be so critical. I still have to line the tray with plastic, and possibly get round to giving the box a coat of white paint…
My old friend the min-max thermometer
Clearing a path to the hoophouse today, I turned the corner and noticed the original min-max thermometer. I don’t usually. It was one of the first bits of gear acquired in Year 1, when the reality of FROST in the garden was a complete and scary unknown. The thermometer records the lowest and highest temperature that it’s hit; you reset it by pushing the little red button. It’s been hanging on the same nail in the same spot for three or four years, more or less out of sight and mind except in spring and fall, when I check it first thing in the morning to see how cold an overnight cold snap really got. Lately, the min-max is not such a big deal. Each different section of the field, and the particular crop in it, reacts differently to each cold night, so the only way to know what’s happened is to walk around and check things out. And I have confidence in row cover. I still check the thermometer, but it’s not like spring in the first couple of years, when I’d bolt awake at 6:00 a.m. and 10 minutes later be walking through the chill and dewy wet grass, adrenaline pumping, waiting for the verdict from the min-max to see what new transplants may’ve been toasted. It was kinda cool to be reminded, out of the blue, how that’s changed. In the case of gardening, at least, the more you know, the easier going you get!
New rosemary
Rosemary, seeded 10 days ago, has been coming up over the last couple of days. I’ve heard that germination for this herb can be hard, under 50%. I’ve usually done better than that. This tray is about half started, and more will come…. Ideally, this would’ve been in at least a month earlier, but I didn’t realize I was out of seed. And it’s so slow to grow… Of course, there are still plants out in the field (I never did bring them in), and although chances are slim, I have high hopes for survivors. I dunno, seems to be something a little off between rosemary and me. I’ve frozen potted up plants by leaving them too long in the hoophouse (after digging them up and putting them in nice big pots), I’ve rescued cuttings at the last minute off of the frozen plants, I’ve left plants in the winter field… It’s odd. I love rosemary! What’s going on? :) Anyhow, there will be rosemary…
Welcome to KeroWorld
What an odd thought, what image comes to mind: the world of kerosene… And now I’m in it! Purchased new today, at a healthy 35% discount, this small, rather inexpensive, KeroWorld-brand indoor kerosene heater is the core technology in the extended-spring greenhouse plan. The idea is to turn the unheated hoophouse into a barely heated one, by warming it at night so that it stays above 38°F (4°C). That way, I can put out seedlings weeks early, instead of crowding them under scarce indoor lighting until it warms up in April. It should also give the earlier-than-ever lettuce, going into the ground in the greenhouse, a smoother start. This heater is low-powered—10,000 BTU, recommended for 420 sq ft, it’s 640 sq ft out there—but only a wee bit of heat is required. I think. Last year’s propane space heater was quite efficient, but burned too much gas for every-night use, it often went out by itself, and it required lots of ventilation. Plus, I don’t really like relying on pressurized tanks. This heater will hopefully burn low and steady, and it’s pour-to-fill! Aided by a fan to keep the air moving, and row cover on the coldest nights, it should get the job done. This all reminds me of Patrick of Bifurcated Carrots’ comment a while ago about the line between good and bad technology. It seems a personal decision as much as anything. Why don’t I dream about full-blown winter greenhouses, with high-intensity lighting and industrial-strength heating and ventilation, I wonder? Dunno. I just don’t. But an extra growing month in the strengthening sun, and a little less reliance on indoor lights, traded off against some kerosene, well, THAT would be cool!
Parsley!
The first flat-leaf parsley has been popping up over the last day. This is Hilmar, a new variety I’m trying for the first time this year, in addition to the regular Plain Italian that’s around every season. Elsewhere in parsley, planted a few days earlier, there are two varieties of curly, Krausa Market and Green River. Altogether, 144 plugs, and I’ll keep two plants per. The quantities are not as worked out as for most of the other crops, because so far, it’s been more of a bonus herb, in CSA shares and occasionally at the farmers’ market. I’ll probably start one more tray of 72, because I have a couple more curly types—Green Pearl and Forest Green—that I’d like to try. Probably won’t need ’em all. I could pot the extra. Anyway, you can never have enough parsley!
Tomato seed
It’s sounds a little odd to call it that, but this is my tomato seed collection. A rough count says there are maybe 150 packets, with another 30 on the way with the just-completed all-heirloom tomato seed order. I’ll get a few more basics, like Juliet, in the last big general seed order, and that’ll be it for the season.
Most of these are different cultivars, there are only a few…doubles. The brown envelopes are heirlooms from a small seed company. The printed packets are mostly hybrids, from my two main seed suppliers. The plastic pouches and plainer white envelopes are various seed given to me to try (I’ll generally only accept seed from trusted sources, people who actually garden and seed-save, to avoid…disease).
Why so much, so many? I dunno. I don’t think of any other veggies in my seed supply as “collections” (like trading cards or tiny action figures). I do clearly remember looking closely at a fuzzy little tomato seed back in Year 1, about to start my first transplants, and thinking, “No way is this little thing is going to turn into a massive tomato plant with 20 lbs of big, fat tomatoes?!” (At that point, all I knew was what I’d read and seen in pictures.) It wasn’t so much disbelief in the powers of the seed, but in my ability to actually manage this obviously intense process—what a tiny seed!—to a reliable, predictable harvest.
Of course, once you’ve watched seeds grow into plants, it becomes…normal: clear the way a bit, and the plants do most of the work! Still, having imprinted themselves on my consciousness FIRST, right at my gardening start, I guess tomatoes have a mild hold on me, and I obsessively plant a few more different varieties every year.
This year, there may be a more manageable 40 varieties (down from over 60 a couple years back). I haven’t finished the starting line-up yet.