Tuesday 19 March 2013

Shoulder Season Growing For The Eager Northerner

 Even though my garden looks like this:



Inside the greenhouse, temps are really heating up!



In preparation to seed, I'm irrigating my beds IN the greenhouse with a good snow mulch.  I've done it twice now and the usually snow melts within a day, saturating the soil gently with nutrient rich soft water.


Outside overnight temps are still WELL below zero - in fact, so are daytime temps for that matter.  Regardless of that fact, I'm pretty inspired by Kevin's talk on Sunday and Eliot Coleman's writings, so I'm prepping to seed cold weather crops in the greenhouse that can take the night time dip in temp  (spinach, radish, brassicas, hardy lettuce, etc...).    I've got nothing to lose by trying - I can always start over if need be for the cost of some seed.  No big deal, right? 



As you can see there's some serious snow remaining.   The picture above is the back of the house and deck (notice the snow on the roof) taken from the path near the greenhouse.

 Below, is the opposite direction (coop and garden) taken from the fork in the path that you see above.


It's going to be quite some time before the garden season begins out of doors, don't you think?

(chuckle)







5 comments:

  1. Nothing to lose at all Sherri and I bet that you'll be growing outdoors before you know it (even though it doesn't look like it, but time has a way of marching on...). I tried to leave a comment the other day about your gorgeous Penny and how big she has grown. What a little petal. Alison xxx

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    1. Hey Alison, yes, wee Penny is darling... we love her so much, it's CRAZY. XO

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  2. I now have greenhouse envy, a disease I get every "spring" around this time. Maybe it will go away if I just start seeding my tomatoes and see some green things sprout.

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  3. Nice Sherri. Do you have any sort of heat sink in the greenhouse? I've seen people will black barrels with water to be able to absorb the sunlight and dispense heat into the house at night. Wanted to see it in action.

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    1. Hey John. We don't as of yet have a heat sink but we are currently researching a few options. I do have barrels to put inside. The side of the greenhouse next to the foundation of the carport stays much warmer so absolutely, heat sinks work! I'd like to put some bricks in there as they would do a good job holding heat, too. We have some scrounged ones sitting under 4' of snow right now!

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