New England March 2017

@Scorpio Rising wrote:Frozen solid here, but no snow at present.  Do you see an advantage to the power grow?  Will you need to wait and see? Are you going to use it in beds too?  

Not yet, yes, and no.  Too cheap to buy it.
This experiment is for my neighbor who supplied me with enough Power Grow to start everything.  I report my findings to him.  So far all is the same except for the roots growing out of the bottom of the cells of the collards greens I planted in the PG earlier.

@Scorpio Rising wrote:
Will you go out there when it is hugely cold and put in seeds?  I know it says "as soon as soil can be worked", but really?  I have never done that.

But I think I should?  I mean that is what it says!

Yes, I plant when the soil can be worked, even tho it seems crazy.  I start with enough seeds for the first succession, saving more back just in case.  But it always seems to work.  They sprout!
I do cover with windows when it's going to snow though, or go below 28.  
Can't remember why I picked 28...must have read it somewhere.

@CapeCoddess wrote:Today I started early green broccoli, ground cherries, Fort Hook Giant chard and Italian parsley . . . They are now on the heating pad which I wrestled away from Miss Lilly.

I'm giving the seedlings 24 hours on the pad before Miss Lily "moves" them.

She better not!

Btw, that's Fordhook chard, not fort...

Hmmmm....so I might give it a try.  As soon as soil can be worked.  Direct seeds; radishes, peas? Turnips?

Heads up, New England...storm tomorrow.  I'm hoping for a mostly rain event here on the Cape, so we can get rid of all this snow.

@Scorpio Rising wrote:Hmmmm....so I might give it a try.  As soon as soil can be worked.  Direct seeds; radishes, peas? Turnips?

Spinach and peas fersure.  I don't grow turnips so I don't know, but the radishes would be spares just in case.  I'd have to look in the back of my ANSFG book to see what else works here.

As an experiment, yesterday I "direct winter sowed" three types of radishes, using gallon jugs with about 3 inches of soil. Only planted short, round varieties that don't get very big. I'm hoping to harvest a handful of ripe radishes from these containers before direct planting succession crops in the kiddie pools.  I've never grown radishes, so this will be a great learning experience.

Two small bins of tomatoes, herbs, and radishes added to the winter sowing area on our deck:



On Saturday, I winter-sowed 25 varieties of heirloom tomatoes, and decided to start a set of the same seeds indoors, for comparison. Wanting to monitor germination rates and speed, it seemed easiest to start the seeds using the damp-paper-towel-in-a-baggie method. I placed the sealed bags on the warm lid of the heated tray where the pepper seeds are sprouting.  This morning (only two days later!) it appears that at least three of the tomato seeds have germinated. When I'm sure they're growing, I'll carefully transfer them to coconut coir plugs and follow the regular process from there.

The pictures are a bit dark, but here's how I prepped the indoor tomato seeds and placed them in the growing area in our laundry room. (Such humble beginnings!)





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Awesome! Love a good experiment! Let us know how those radishes do. Have you winter sown tomatoes before?

Those things under lights look like potatoes but why are there long green leaves coming out of the far right one? Looks like onion leaves.

@CapeCoddess wrote:Awesome!  Love a good experiment!  Let us know how those radishes do.  Have you winter sown tomatoes before?

Those things under lights look like potatoes but why are there long green leaves coming out of the far right one? Looks like onion leaves.

Ha! Those are onion leaves. There's a jar with sprouted onions between the jars of sweet potatoes.

I winter sowed two slices from store bought cherry toms, last year; both spouted, but only one survived. Of all the tomatoes I tried to grow last season, that one was my only real success; it produced lovely yellow cherry tomatoes all summer, until frost.
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Nice start!  Umm, hunker down, NE, there is snow a coming!  We have had a super mild winter here.

@Scorpio Rising wrote:Nice start!  Umm, hunker down, NE, there is snow a coming!  We have had a super mild winter here.

Agreed! Stay safe NE folks!

Got snow?

Nope. Seems to be an all rain/wind event here and is washing away the piles of snow we did have.


But I DO have broccoli sprouts!  They were up this morning.  Top cell pack in MM, bottom pack in Power Grow.  Also, I'm experimenting with spritzing the surfaces with H2O2 - the 8 cells on the left side had it done and far right 4 did not.


Also Ms. Sanderson, to avoid future seedling 'spills', a week ago I put a blanket over the heating pad for Lilly to sit on.  Then when I needed the pad for my seeds, I slid it out but left the blanket.  I don't think she knows it's missing but I could be fooling myself.  

Got Blizzard?

@bigdogrock wrote:Got Blizzard?

You're so funny!
No blizzard by proper defination, but we definitely had a nor'easter. Winds to 74 mph. Still windy and cold today but sunny.
How about in your neck of the woods?

Crickey!

I got 17 inches here.  Blustery and white-outs thru the windows.  I couldn't see the river across the back lawn.  Snow flying sideways.
Here's our 2 planters nearly covered.  These are 4 feet tall.

This was the white-out view of the river.

testing

I had to test this.  I kept doing it wrong and had to retry several times but this time I wrote it down.   By the way, this is my Corgi, Penny, toasty warm under the ironing board tho with her double coat the snow never seems to bother her while I have to dress like the Pillsbury Dough Boy.

Aww...it's good to see Penny again! AND you!

That's a lot of snow, QB. Are you in your new place now?
CC

Hi QB. Good to see you.

Wow, QB!  Lots of snow!  Penny seems chill however!  LOL!  Glad you are checking in!  Stay warm!

Yes, Cape, I am in my apt. by the river and loving it.  The only thing I really miss here is parking my car in my son's garage.  Now its out in the parking lot and we old folks have to clear off our cars and shovel them out and move them after every snowfall (2" or more) so our snow plow guy can clear the lot.
I wanted to hire a kid from across the road to help me out (I see them waiting for the school bus in the mornings), but can't do that I'm told.  Liability issues on the building's insurance.  So we all have to do them on our own.  In 24 apts. there are only 4 men with all the rest of us being lady elders.  One of those men doesn't have a car so he's never out in the snow and one is 95 and we ladies try to get him shoveled out as a group.  He's very active and bright as a button and always on the go, going out every day. 

Nice day today.  Wishing spring would get here so I can buy some tomato and lettuce plants for the back patio.

My kitchen was filling up with containers full of kitchen scraps so I HAD to go out to the compost pile today. The pile is frozen so I chopped off the top half and I dug a hole down into the middle. There were gobs of worms in there. I mean they were everywhere! They don't seem to realize that there is a blizzard coming tomorrow. I fed them all the kitchen scraps and stuck the top back on. I hope they're happy.

Just came in from sowing the first planting of these guys: [url=https://servimg.com/view/17528927/2083][/

I'm about two weeks behind last year's schedule but of course the weather is much different. This year we're still in winter. Last year if I remember correctly we had an earlier spring.

I remember last year, here, we had a late winter blast...not doing that again.  I had a bunch of baby leaves out there, had to do cloches....not the best...the plants did survive...but I am going to delay this whole process.

Hey CC, I just looked at the radar, the elbow looks like it is getting pounded. Stay inside and warm.