I have seedlings

It is so beautiful and sunny out today and the robins inspired me. My cold frame was completely buried in snow last Monday but today the top is completely clear. So I took the shovel and cleared a bit of a path out to it to see what was happening. When I lifted the lid I saw that I have seedlings. Radishes and mesclun mix are poking their heads out of the soil. Between the robins and the seedlings my faith that the natural order of things is still in place, has been renewed. By the end of next month I should be eating my own salad fixens.

Gwynn

Yayayayayayayay! You give me hope---as I look out at our snowy landscape!

yay for seedlings and double yay for fresh salad fixins.

oh radishes! they announce spring! i heart them so much. congratulations on your seedlings!

Don'tcha just love going out there sitting in the dirt, eating at your own grown salad bar???

FarmerValerie wrote:Don'tcha just love going out there sitting in the dirt, eating at your own grown salad bar???

Gwynn

Congratulations! How does this cold frame business work? It sounds like you had seeds planted over the winter.

Cynergist, I am so sorry, I didn't see your post until today

The cold frame is a shelter that you can build for your plants to extend your growing season in the spring and in the fall. Basically, it is like a miniature greenhouse. You can make it as small or as big and elaborate as you like. I made mine with some scrap lumber we had and old glass door someone left in the back lane near my work. I put it on the south side of the garden shed where it gets lots of sun. It warms up inside so nicely before the snow is gone in the rest of the yard and I can start planting some things in it before I can even see the rest of the garden.

Last year, I decided to try making a hot bed out of it. New fangled ways are to run special heating cables under the soil to warm it up and extend your growing season even more. My Mennonite upbringing and old hippie that I am has resulted in an aversion to relying on corporate power companies and 'big brother' anymore than I have to. There are FREE ways to get heat. So I tried the old fashioned way which is to dig out the soil, put down a layer of manure, moisten it, which will start it generating some heat, and put your soil or in my case Mel's Mix on top and plant your plants. Unfortunately there was an issue with getting the manure which I won't get into again, but I planted some lettuce and radishes.

This was pretty much of an first time experiment for me and I had NO CLUE whatsoever about how to do this. Turned out that it was too late in the season for anything to start growing last fall. The days were getting too short......Day length is very important for germination and temperatures were dropping too low, even with the manure. I discovered that the shadow of the house in the fall fell on the cold frame/hot bed so it got very little sun during the day. And then it snowed and didn't stop.

But my little seeds were safe and cozy and as soon as the snow melted off the glass on the top, they started to grow. So all was not lost. Before anything else was even visible in the yard there were little green sprouts in the cold frame. I am watching them and keeping an eye on the temp. inside as it can get VERY warm very quickly and kill all your little seedlings,,,,,especially things like lettuce and radishes who like it cool. I am hoping I will have salad fixins before Easter.

Gwynn

That is awesome! This inspired me to get the good 'ol pvc pipe out and make a greenhouse around one of my 4x4 squares. It is much too cold to start regular planting but I suspect in another week it will be just right to start playing in the dirt again.

However, today I moved the strawberry plants out of one of my boxes. I let them go crazy last year and I just couldn't bear looking at the box because of the spider web of suckers everywhere. From 1 box where I planted 8 strawberry plants last year, I pulled out 25 today and put them out in their own hill outside the frame. Hopefully they will grow well this year and give me plenty of berries compared to last year.