Friday, March 29, 2013
Lettuce update
Lettuce started indoors on March 4th was transplanted out on March 15th to the small cold frame (where all but one has been munched by a varmint) and out to the large cold frame on March 21st where I'm pleased to report the growth of nice-looking first true leaves!
Arugula: direct seeded in cold frame
Finally up today! The seeds were planted on March 15, so they took 14 days to come up in the cold frame where the soil temperature is 45-50 degrees. Time to sprout in the house was just 3 days!
Today, the transplants that had been started in the house on March 10 are just barely showing the growth of their second leaves (19 days). It'll be interesting to see how the staggered planting and indoor vs outdoor germination plays out.
Getting a jump on the season: Carrots
Well, I've been doing some complaining about not starting early enough, and here I find out I started my carrots too early - let me back up.
A friend of mine introduced me to a local gardening power team, Gene Bazan and Tania Slawecki. I've visited their impressive production system twice now, and brought home lots and lots of ideas, some more feasible than others given the attention I can afford to dedicate to the garden realm. You can read more about their system at neo-terra.org.
One of these ideas was to start carrots in flats rather than direct seeding them. Typically, this is ill-advised because the carrot root is so fragile and transplanting is so tedious. But Gene succeeds, and there are certain advantages. Carrot seeds take quite a long time to germinate (2-3 weeks) and the soil must be maintained evenly moist during this period. I accomplished this one year (or perhaps the weather cooperated) but other seasons, especially summer planting for fall harvests, I have not managed to get out there and water regularly enough to assure carrot germination.
This year, I thought I'd give Gene's method a try - and I was thrilled with the results. A high rate of germination in just 4 days! I moved the flat (a reused plastic organic spinach pack from the grocery store) out to the cold frame for better light.
But having sprouted 3 weeks ago, none of the seedlings have true leaves. All of the cotyledons are a beautiful healthy shade of green, they just don't seem to be growing.
So I started investigating light and temperature requirements (great article from Plant Pro here) and asked Gene for more guidance. Here's what I learned:
1. Carrots develop the root length in as little as 3 weeks.
2. Carrots develop the root length within the first 50 days.
3. "An increase in early storage root length after emergence is favoured considerably by constant temperatures of 20 or 24°C." (20c=68F)
4. "Preferred growing conditions for most carrot cultivars are warm day and cool night temperatures and this usually provides the best combination of root length and diameter."
5. Gene starts his seeds around March 30th to transplant May 4th (State College, PA dates)
6. When transplanting, Gene's seedlings are about 2" tall and have ~4 true leaves.
7. To transplant Gene inserts a narrow trowel, pulls the prepared, finely textured soil back, and drops the 2-3" long taproot straight down into the void behind the trowel before pulling it out and settling the soil.
8. Gene's preferred are Danvers and Danvers half-long for heavy clay soils.
But I'm still not quite to the bottom of why my carrots aren't sprouting true leaves. Clearly, I started them too early, about a month earlier than Gene. But the Plant Pro article seems to say they like warm days and cool nights, which is about what they are getting in the cold frame - although nights may be too cold? We have been having the steadiest string of gray gray days. Light definitely could be an issue.
Verdict? Since they haven't actually died, I'm going to allow the experiment to play out. I'll keep them in their flats, in the cold frame until they sprout leaves, or until the seeds I'll start this weekend (on Gene's schedule) beat them in the race. There's a definite chance they won't win this competition, but I've always had a hard time pulling a living plant - except dock, but that's another story.
A friend of mine introduced me to a local gardening power team, Gene Bazan and Tania Slawecki. I've visited their impressive production system twice now, and brought home lots and lots of ideas, some more feasible than others given the attention I can afford to dedicate to the garden realm. You can read more about their system at neo-terra.org.
One of these ideas was to start carrots in flats rather than direct seeding them. Typically, this is ill-advised because the carrot root is so fragile and transplanting is so tedious. But Gene succeeds, and there are certain advantages. Carrot seeds take quite a long time to germinate (2-3 weeks) and the soil must be maintained evenly moist during this period. I accomplished this one year (or perhaps the weather cooperated) but other seasons, especially summer planting for fall harvests, I have not managed to get out there and water regularly enough to assure carrot germination.
This year, I thought I'd give Gene's method a try - and I was thrilled with the results. A high rate of germination in just 4 days! I moved the flat (a reused plastic organic spinach pack from the grocery store) out to the cold frame for better light.
But having sprouted 3 weeks ago, none of the seedlings have true leaves. All of the cotyledons are a beautiful healthy shade of green, they just don't seem to be growing.
So I started investigating light and temperature requirements (great article from Plant Pro here) and asked Gene for more guidance. Here's what I learned:
1. Carrots develop the root length in as little as 3 weeks.
2. Carrots develop the root length within the first 50 days.
3. "An increase in early storage root length after emergence is favoured considerably by constant temperatures of 20 or 24°C." (20c=68F)
4. "Preferred growing conditions for most carrot cultivars are warm day and cool night temperatures and this usually provides the best combination of root length and diameter."
5. Gene starts his seeds around March 30th to transplant May 4th (State College, PA dates)
6. When transplanting, Gene's seedlings are about 2" tall and have ~4 true leaves.
7. To transplant Gene inserts a narrow trowel, pulls the prepared, finely textured soil back, and drops the 2-3" long taproot straight down into the void behind the trowel before pulling it out and settling the soil.
8. Gene's preferred are Danvers and Danvers half-long for heavy clay soils.
But I'm still not quite to the bottom of why my carrots aren't sprouting true leaves. Clearly, I started them too early, about a month earlier than Gene. But the Plant Pro article seems to say they like warm days and cool nights, which is about what they are getting in the cold frame - although nights may be too cold? We have been having the steadiest string of gray gray days. Light definitely could be an issue.
Verdict? Since they haven't actually died, I'm going to allow the experiment to play out. I'll keep them in their flats, in the cold frame until they sprout leaves, or until the seeds I'll start this weekend (on Gene's schedule) beat them in the race. There's a definite chance they won't win this competition, but I've always had a hard time pulling a living plant - except dock, but that's another story.
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Friday, March 22, 2013
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Late spring
Caution... Anyone using the garden calendar for scheduling planting, we are obviously getting behind. The weather has just been too cold and the ground is definitely not ready for transplanting without protection. I'll post when I put my peas and greens out but I don't think it's going to be very soon.
I'm not going to change the calendar because these dates could very well be good ones for future years. We'll just have to keep an eye on the past dates and make sure we catch up on everything when the weather finally warms.
Lessons on light
Well, I ran an experiment (with no controls and only out of desperation.)
I was headed out of town for a few days, and I knew the indoor seedlings were going to be starved for light with grey days in the forecast and no grow lights. I also knew that my cold frames may be no match for the forecast temperatures, 20-something nights and 30-something days. So I split a batch. Six of Fedco's winter mix lettuce plants went out in the cold frame and the other 6 stayed in the house in the sunniest window I have.
After 5 days, here's how they look in the house:
Cold frame looks to have less growth overall. No leggy stems, but no second leaves either. And the color of the leaves is changing - that could be fine, this one might be a red-leaf lettuce, or it might mean it got too cold or something.
But either way, neither croaked. I put the leggy ones in the ground in the larger cold frame today... Not sure they will recover, but I have some certainty they won't freeze. Last night the large cold frame reported a low of 23 degrees!!! But I'm not sure that was what the plants experienced. All the carrots, green onions, kale, and collard were upright and waiting for the sun this morning.
I've moved the thermometer to lay on the soil instead of hanging on the wooden wall of the cold frame, that should give me a better idea what the plants are "feeling".
I was headed out of town for a few days, and I knew the indoor seedlings were going to be starved for light with grey days in the forecast and no grow lights. I also knew that my cold frames may be no match for the forecast temperatures, 20-something nights and 30-something days. So I split a batch. Six of Fedco's winter mix lettuce plants went out in the cold frame and the other 6 stayed in the house in the sunniest window I have.
After 5 days, here's how they look in the house:
And here's how they look in the cold frame:
Cold frame looks to have less growth overall. No leggy stems, but no second leaves either. And the color of the leaves is changing - that could be fine, this one might be a red-leaf lettuce, or it might mean it got too cold or something.
But either way, neither croaked. I put the leggy ones in the ground in the larger cold frame today... Not sure they will recover, but I have some certainty they won't freeze. Last night the large cold frame reported a low of 23 degrees!!! But I'm not sure that was what the plants experienced. All the carrots, green onions, kale, and collard were upright and waiting for the sun this morning.
I've moved the thermometer to lay on the soil instead of hanging on the wooden wall of the cold frame, that should give me a better idea what the plants are "feeling".
Friday, March 15, 2013
Carrots.
problem. Grey, grey days.
The cold frame gives enough light even on a grey day, but the
temperatures haven't evened out enough for much transplanting.
I decided to split the cast up. Six lettuces transplanted to the
smaller cold frame in the garden, and eight arugula to the big cold
frame. I also seeded more arugula to the big cold frame.
Everything else remains in the house for now.
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Garden Calendar Revisions
Argh... Am I ever going to be on time?
This year I knew I wanted cold frames, but didn't know I would actually pull of deploying them. That came relatively late, and the seed order went in late, and now I have cold frames at a time of year when they could be housing harvestable crops, but my seedlings don't even have their first true leaves!
I've added dates to the garden calendar to remind myself next year that that seed order must go in by January 2, in order to start the seeds mid-January (yes, even though it feels too early), so that transplants are ready to go in the box by mid-february, so that we could be eating the stuff RIGHT NOW!
This year I knew I wanted cold frames, but didn't know I would actually pull of deploying them. That came relatively late, and the seed order went in late, and now I have cold frames at a time of year when they could be housing harvestable crops, but my seedlings don't even have their first true leaves!
I've added dates to the garden calendar to remind myself next year that that seed order must go in by January 2, in order to start the seeds mid-January (yes, even though it feels too early), so that transplants are ready to go in the box by mid-february, so that we could be eating the stuff RIGHT NOW!
Cold Frame # 2
Unbelievably good timing. The drywaller got behind schedule in the workshop and we weren't ready for painting this past weekend, so the cold frame got moved up as the weekend project. (Plus the drywaller said he'd prime the whole thing for $100 and that will save a weekend's worth of work next weekend, so we said, uh, yeah!)
And... Voila!
And... Voila!
The base box (below) is constructed of 2x12 boards salvaged from the property, lined with 2" foam board (left over from insulating the addition). (You can see the insulation installed along one of the base board walls.) That base box was placed in a trench so that about 3" is above ground on the uphill side.
On top of that is another identical box made of new 2x12 boards. Then a 2x12 riser (back) leans on two 2x12 triangles (end walls) to support two fabulous Habitat for Humanity Restore double-pane windows, $5 each. The windows are 42" across and 51" tall for a total cold frame size of approximate 4' by 7' (28 square feet.) (The white framed one, from the same source for the same price, is headed to a friends' house for her cold frame.)
We used gorilla glue to mount a foam window insulating gasket around the box. It's not a perfect seal yet, so work remains there.
I bought what appears to be a nice value - a wireless "Weather Thermometer" made by AcuRite ($15 at Lowes). The outdoor sensor is hung on the inside of the south wall of the cold frame (so it will not be in direct sunlight) and the base unit that reports the temperature of that sensor is either inside where I can keep an eye on it, or as pictured below, outside where it monitors the true outdoor temperature. So on this first day with a closed top, and soil that is still quite cold, the outdoor temperature is 60 and the box temperature is 74 (with a high of 75 and a low of 51 - when I installed the thermometer in the morning.) (Made me think about installing an automatic vent opener like this.)
The soil at the site was better than average for our yard, but a little stony, and with some pretty serious subsoil clay (red mottles and everything.) I decided to keep it, but added a significant amount of peat moss to help keep a loose structure, and then a full dose (4.5 cups for this 28 square foot bed) of Organic Garden-tone Herb&Vegetable Food (3-4-4). If I can get the timing right mid summer, or next winter, I will try to add a good load of compost.
I already posted about my seed starting enthusiasm. Now I'm using the cold frame to help those seeds get good sunlight since I still haven't invested in grow lights. So far, even with gray days, it seems to have been enough help to prevent them from getting embarrassingly leggy. The seeds are all still in their starting trays. I'm not sure the soil in the cold frame is warm enough for germination, and until it warms up I'm not sure I can count on the box staying above freezing, so I am a little nervous about direct seeding in there, although given the cost of seed, it's a relatively low risk venture.)
Overall, and as always, I wish we had gotten an earlier start. But with these cold frames deployed, it will certainly be possible to plant 2-3 inch diameter lettuce starts by the middle of February, and to be harvesting lettuce by now. This permanent installation is going to be full of food through the shoulder seasons and potentially the winter for years to come.
Saturday, March 9, 2013
the calendar
I haven't exactly been keeping up with that calendar off to the right, but I did finally get some things started.
I started 12 of Fedco's Winter Mix on Monday (3/4) and with nearly 100% germination by Friday (3/8) I'm looking forward to the 6-7 week harvest estimate. I wish I'd started them earlier, because the cold frame is ready for them now.
I started a plastic organic spinach tub full of Scarlet Nantes carrot seeds on Monday (3/4) as well, and wonder of wonders - they are germinating already! I may never go back to direct seeding carrots.
Today I started the green onions, also in a spinach tub.
Tomorrow I plan to start collard, kale, chard, basil, and cilantro.
I sort of planned not to do too much starting indoors because it's a challenge to manage light and moisture for such a long period. But the chance to gain weeks on the harvest date is teasing me into trying it again. I may set up grow lights yet.
I started 12 of Fedco's Winter Mix on Monday (3/4) and with nearly 100% germination by Friday (3/8) I'm looking forward to the 6-7 week harvest estimate. I wish I'd started them earlier, because the cold frame is ready for them now.
I started a plastic organic spinach tub full of Scarlet Nantes carrot seeds on Monday (3/4) as well, and wonder of wonders - they are germinating already! I may never go back to direct seeding carrots.
Today I started the green onions, also in a spinach tub.
Tomorrow I plan to start collard, kale, chard, basil, and cilantro.
I sort of planned not to do too much starting indoors because it's a challenge to manage light and moisture for such a long period. But the chance to gain weeks on the harvest date is teasing me into trying it again. I may set up grow lights yet.
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