N&C Midwest April 2022

JAM23 wrote:Well, picked up a soil thermometer and took my first reading this morning. Soil is 32 degrees in my raised beds! Brrrrrrr!!!!! That explains a lot. Thank you for steering me in this direction. With this tool I feel like I have a little more accurate information about when to plant. Have a great day!

Great to hear!  Having the right tools makes all the difference between success and failure.

Started my tomatoes, ground cherries, eggplant, basils and re-started cilantro and flat leaf parsley….I am also really wanting to see some germination on the herbs , they are just really expensive to buy!  

Onions up, clipped and off the lights.

FINALLY got potatoes into the bed!  Took a minute.  Sort of weeded the strawberry bed.  Lots of grass.  Mowed the back yard—that was fun!  

Got onion starts.  Red and Candy.  Will get those going soon!  Late spring here….

Tonight will be the third night in a row that my area is having a frost/freeze warning followed by a chance of rain everyday for the next 5 days and cooler than average temperatures. UGH!!! Soil temperature is hovering around 45 degrees. Spinach, radishes and peas have all popped up and seem to be doing well. Impatiently waiting to get try and get my kale and kohlrabi transplanted outside and to direct sow some carrots, beets and lettuce. Rough!

How is everyone else dealing with this cool and damp weather?

JAM23 wrote:
How is everyone else dealing with this cool and damp weather?

I am just waiting it out. It was 29ºF this morning, and supposed to be the same tomorrow morning. The peas, spinach, spring onions, and kale are doing fine. The leaf lettuce hasn't germinated yet. The peppers, tomatoes, and swiss chard are started under lights indoors, but won't be going outside for a couple more weeks.

I want to put out my direc seeds too…just so cold.  It was 30F* here this morning, and supposed to be colder tomorrow.

I have my cold frame closed at present, but will open it in the morning—radishes and turnips, spinaches up in there.  

Been crazy….so cold.  It has been like this for at least 5 years.

First harvest of Rhubarb today. Enough for one pie and a Rhubarb Cake. The Canada Red is always about 3 weeks ahead of the Victoria, and it is so sweet.

OhioGardener wrote:First harvest of Rhubarb today. Enough for one pie and a Rhubarb Cake. The Canada Red is always about 3 weeks ahead of the Victoria, and it is so sweet.

That is so exciting! I have not had the confidence yet to plant rhubarb but I would like to! I need to find somewhere in my yard that can support it. I am going to earmark these varieties for when I am ready! May I ask where is a good place to purchase these?

I did direct sow some swiss chard today, and thinned my spinach, peas and radishes.

JAM23 wrote:That is so exciting! I have not had the confidence yet to plant rhubarb but I would like to! I need to find somewhere in my yard that can support it. I am going to earmark these varieties for when I am ready! May I ask where is a good place to purchase these?

The best place to get rhubarb crowns is from a local friend, farmer, or grower. They will be acclimated to your area, and ready to grow.  In the early spring you can find rhubarb roots for sale in all of the big box stores, including Walmart, but they will only have Victoria variety.

I many years I have had only Victoria (they are the most common variety grown everywhere), but I am gradually replacing them. I have one Canada Red, 2 Victoria, and 2 Glaskins Perpetual now.  This fall I am going to split the Canada Red into 3 crowns, and use them to replace the Victoria.  The Victoria are terrible about sending up flower stalks, and the leaf stalks are smaller than the Canada Red. Both the Canada Red and Glaskins Perpetual are sweeter than the Victoria. The Glaskins Perpetual I started from seed purchased from Baker Creek Heirloom. The nice thing about the Glaskins Perpetual is that you can pull the stalks all summer long, right up until the fall frost.

I have a large Starkrimson that was basically sitting dormant in my clay dirt until last year when I put it in a 3’ fire ring that I got at TSC.  Filled it with MM, and put my dug-up rhubarb in there.  What a huge difference that made!!!!  It has taken off, and I may have to divide it too, OG.  I will give it another year.  This will be the first year I can really harvest it.

I was having the same problem with my Rhubarb plants, SR. They were continually suffering with crown rot until  several years ago when I dug them out of the ground and planted them in fire rings. They have really taken off since then.  Now I have three Glaskins Perpetual Rhubarb plants that I started from seed that are planted in the BTE garden, and they are experiencing the same problem of too much moisture.  I want to lift them up into fire rings too, but shudder every time I see the new cost of the fire rings. All of the local stores have renamed them to "Raised Beds/Fire Rings", and priced them accordingly.

It truly is ridiculous on the prices….agree….but they really hate wet feet.

Scorpio Rising wrote:It truly is ridiculous on the prices….agree….but they really hate wet feet.

I finally gave in and bought some new fire rings so that I can raise up the other 3 Rhubarb plants.  They were out of the corrugated metal ones I went after, but they agreed to give me these more expensive ones for the same price.  So, I got 3 of the 5 they had left in stock.

Now I have to get the compost, coir, and vermiculite together to fill them. They hold 7 cu ft each.