Time to harden off the tomato plants

 Its that time of year again.  Time to harden off the tomato seedlings.  Night time temps will soon be in the 50s.  I should be excited about the milestone but it's a chore.  It takes several days of in and out and constant monitoring. 

 My seed starting setup is in the basement.  Which means this isn't as simple as picking up the flat and walking out the door.  There is a stairway to deal with. I suppose I could rearrange things and make room in the cold frame.  But I think the answer this time is to move my grow light out to the garden shed counter.  That will simplify things a LOT.  I mean they'll be in the way, but at least they will be only 10 level feet from where I can set them out.  And they will be setting out near the garden where I'm working and won't be forgotten over by the house.

These seedlings are growing by leaps and bounds.  They have the fan running on them five hours a day and I am having to adjust the light higher every day. 

Yep, I think this whole set up is moving out to the garden shed today.

It May be Spring

I've figured out why they call this month "May"  It may be spring. It may be winter. Some days it feels like fall.  Its actually snowing now even though its in the 40s.  It is overcast and raw and the sun only shines every few days but you know its on its way OUT and not IN.  So it is almost tolerable.  You make a little list of outside things that you want done and get those done and then head back inside.  

I wanted to try this neat looking lavender cauliflower but the seeds took forever to arrive.  When the seeds finally came, my cauliflower plants were already transplanted.  But it didn't take them too long to catch up.  They're small but they are out in the big world.  The big cold world.  Luckily they are used to the unheated basement so they are not too coddled.

I didn't want to cover the entire bed with a shade cloth so I used the little wire baskets from the Dollar Store to shelter them from the wind and sun.  If we ever get any.

I made an addition to my row cover system. 

I put these pipe straps at the end to secure the netting.

They will gather the netting on their own for awhile as you make adjustments

Then a clamp secures it.  This keeps the knot from blowing back in against the end plants and also lets you put some pressure on the end hoop to keep it straight.

The Easy Out Earth Staples I use for the floating row covers are too small for the netting but the pipe straps and clamp works well.

I am getting ready to plant potatoes in grow bags.

The peas are doing their thing

The old lettuce seed I scattered as ground cover are doing better than their counterparts in the cold frame.

I have a couple of flats of annuals under cover.  As I make my rounds of the greenhouses if I see a variety I want I grab it whether I am ready for it or not.  They would barely fit in the cold frame if I tried.  These are flats of zinnias, calendula and nasturtium and all are at least germinated.

My pear tree is turning into a pretty happy little tree.  It is putting out a lot of new growth and the Bartlett and Bosc limbs flowered.  The other limbs are Summercrisp and Seckel.  This little pear tree has weathered some challenges.  After its rude introduction to our climate, it had some fire blight on two branches that had to be pruned out.  It looks like it is really going to try.  I hope it does well this year.

The Surecrop strawberries are looking great and flowering well.  I fertilized them with Tomato Tone on the theory that both tomatoes and strawberries are berries and they should need the same N-P-K ratio.  If I come across any Berry Tone I'll pick some up.

Thanks to the world wide trade interruptions due to Covid, some things have been hard to find.  If I can buy something locally instead of shipping it in, I will pay a couple bucks extra.  But the options are pretty limited around here this year.  I've had to ship in gallons of Neptune's Harvest fertilizer and Repels-all deer repellent.  And then I had to order in Milorganite because the only stores around here that carry it are Tractor Supply and they just can't get it.  The one in the next county had it but it sold out fast.  At least, so far, the Espoma fertilizers are available and reasonable.

I've gotten all of the perennials fertilized and sprayed for deer.  Now I have to plant up the whiskey barrels.  I have some shrubs and perennials still shipping in and even though I've filled my allotted space for dahlias, I went and ordered some more on sale.  If push comes to shove I have a lot of pots to use!

Retirement

 As it turns out, if you work hard, live in a small house and save your pennies, you get to retire early.  It also helps to marry a man half a generation ahead of you who works hard, saves money and does almost everything himself.  And so it is.  I am retired a good fifteen years ahead of my peers.  After years of planning, the day came on April 16th.  I left behind my nice office job of 20+ years.  If I hadn't had such a good job all these years I would not be in a position to leave it.  But so far I don't miss it.  Taking the plunge was hard, but the adjustment has been easy.

There are some really nice things about retirement.  You get to sleep past 5 a.m. (if you want to, because I really like 5 a.m. in June).  You get to take afternoon naps on rainy days.  Looking at the clock at 4:00 on a Sunday afternoon does not cause a pang of regret that the weekend is almost over.  And you don't have to rush out in the morning to start outdoor work so you don't waste precious hours.  Unless you are trying to get it done before the heat or the rain.  You can wait for it to warm up.  And you can wait until you are in the mood.  Or you can put it off until tomorrow and spend the day reading.

It has been nice to spend time, uninterrupted, on the yard and garden.  The first week was like an extended weekend.  By the middle of the second week I couldn't shake the feeling that I should be somewhere more important doing... something.  On Wednesday afternoon, which I thought was Thursday afternoon, the feeling overtook me and bullied me to distraction. I poured a glass of wine and sat with my feet up watching the bluebirds build their nest until the unsettled feeling finally passed and I could put weeding and watering back on the top of my priority list.

The edging and mulching is almost done

There is another thing about retirement.  You have to develop stamina. For the first solid week I felt a little tired and vaguely achy.  Some of that could be because the Friday I retired I left the office, raced across town to drop my work laptop off at UPS to send it back to Houston headquarters and went straight to my second Covid vaccination.  It is hard to say what part of feeling a bit wiped out was because of working outside 5 hours a day for more than two days in a row and what part was vaccine reaction.  In the first 9 days I lost 4 pounds.

The strawberries are beginning to bloom

Its hard to tell what day it is anymore.  Sunday is the only day you really have to know about because store hours change if you need to run errands and its rude to run noisy equipment before 9 a.m.  I try to remember to turn my cell phone on every few days to check for messages.  This week we plan to head towards town to go to the Amish greenhouse, to Tractor Supply for fertilizer and to the grocery store.

This May is starting out a lot better than last year.  It is still very windy, but warm and dry and mostly sunny.  A few days ago we got two inches of rain over 36 hours.  It was constant but gentle and didn't wash out our mulch as sometimes happens. My cauliflower have been outside for a week under a frost blanket and a 50% shade cloth.  This is my method of hardening them off.  Next week I will switch this out for netting.

The cauliflower plants look good. 
Those darn oak leaves get everywhere!

First and Second planting of Penelope Peas.
There are also tiny lettuce plants that I direct seeded along side.

Nursery raised red and green cabbages

The one downside of retirement is that I can't spend every lunch hour at the four nearby nurseries shopping for plants.  We all know that they get frequent shipments this time of year.  But somehow I think I'll manage.

The Chilly Pear Tree - The Sequel

 It was this time last year when I had just planted my four in one pear tree and the polar vortex dipped down and chilled us all to the bone.  All of the (well, most - not the old timers) gardeners on my local garden Facebook page were frantic about the forecasted snow yesterday.  Especially the ones who had planted tomatoes.  Rookie mistake.  Yeah I know it was 80 degrees the other day.  But its also April.  In New York.  We had been enjoying 50 degree weather and some sun.  I have gotten a good start cleaning and weeding the landscape beds in preparation for mulch.

Of course the pear tree had begun to leaf out this past week in the mild temperatures.  It was showing some nice buds and I really want to give it a chance to do well so I got out the bean poles and frost blanket again.  Deja vu.

We could have gotten up to 6 inches of snow today.  But luckily the temperatures are hovering in the low 30s and we aren't dealing with high winds this time.  I gathered up everything I had in pots (pansies, transplanted perennials etc) and tucked them into either the cold frame or under a frost blanket I threw over the cabbages when I planted them

It was a rather slushy snow which weighed the covers down.  And at one point we did have a good inch of accumulation everywhere but - I didn't go outside then....

I went out and shook everything off and coaxed it back into shape.

The apple trees are showing buds but will be OK 

unless the temperatures take a real dive.

The pear tree was in the same stage of bud, silly thing.

I think even the daffodils will still look nice.  These I planted last fall in the new bed in front of the deck.  I considered picking them to enjoy before the snow ruined them but I think there will still be some nice flowers left after this is over.  I have hundreds of daffys blooming all over and they were so beautiful this week.

Spring in Full Swing

 We have a hot dry spring under way.  It has been nice to have the warm weather and sunshine, but I can't help thinking that I might almost prefer gloomy and rainy.  I have been having to water regularly just to get things going.

I filled my deck planters with pansies.  Home Depot had a great selection of the citrus blend which was exactly what I was in the mood for.  It is always hard for me to choose pansies because there is such a wide color palette and I love them all.  They were always the first plants to flower in our greenhouse, and the stems were perfect for little hands to pick.  Thus, I spent a lot of time picking pansies.  I just need to top off the mulch now that its settled.

The first two plantings of peas are up (planted March 15 and 29th) and the third planting is seeded.  I seeded leftover lettuce seed from last year down each side to act as living mulch but nothing has germinated yet.

I bought two packs of cabbage at the nursery.  I will still wait a week or two before setting out my cauliflower seedlings.  This time of year I had planned to use the frost blanket weight of row cover because it holds up well to snow and hard freezes.  But instead I grabbed a short length of summer weight floating row cover.  I was glad I did because the day after I transplanted these I came home to air temperatures of 86+ in the garden

The cabbages didn't seem to mind.

I seeded carrots a week or more ago.  Carrot seeds can be a real bugger to keep warm and damp and I get impatient because they end up not germinating until June.  I considered covering them with burlap but the draw back to burlap is the little leaves will push up into the weave and you can pull everything up when you remove it.  It does best when you can elevate it half an inch above the soil.  And I couldn't figure out how to do that in container (without using up all of my grow-thru grids) and still keep it secured so instead I'm trying bubble wrap.

This week we are expecting more seasonable weather of mid-50s and rain.  This is the perfect time of year to mulch the landscape beds because the plants are small and the lawn is soft enough to edge.  So its time to get busy!  I have dug up the perennials that I want to move and pried up any dandelions. Finally I will apply Milorganite fertilizer to everything then the mulching will begin.

The Cold Frame - Mark II

Since I don't have a greenhouse yet I make great use of my Cold Frame that  was built 10 years ago.  I use it to start seedlings a few weeks early, harden off all of my seedlings and store greenhouse purchases until weather permits planting.

It was quite pretty in it's youth.  The lids were picture framed with mortise and tenon corners.  The panels, salvaged from a friend's commercial greenhouse, were set into grooves.  All these details made the lids attractive, but also created some problems.  The panels were recessed below the wooden surface which made a great place for ice to collect in the winter.  The weight of snow could bend the panels enough for them to pop out of their grooves.  Water accumulated along the lower edge and any moisture or dirt that got into the channels of the panels, from either end, was trapped there forever.

Last year the corners of the lids gave out.  My husband really wanted to throw the whole thing on the burn pile and I don't blame him for that.  It was definitely past it's useful life span.  But instead he reinforced the corners so it would survive the winter and then this spring he offered to make repairs.  

We could have used the remaining salvaged panels and rebuilt the lids exactly the same.  But the remaining panels weren't in much better condition.  As the polycarbonate ages it discolors and becomes brittle.  The old panels were no longer surviving hail storms and were beginning to look as if someone had shot them with a pellet gun.  Last spring when the weather was so cold they did not let in enough light to raise the temperature much.  So it was time for a little redesign.  

Voila'. I give you - the Cold Frame Mark II

Greenhousemegastore.com sells reasonably priced 2 foot by 4 foot twinwalled polycarbonte panels in packages of 5 with free shipping.  And they also offer a 10% discount to listeners of the Joe Gardener podcasts. These panels are perfect for a do it yourself cold frame project.  They come in either 6mm or 8mm and I ordered the 8mm.  My husband was really excited to hear that their size (while convenient to ship) meant the lid would have to be built in three pieces instead of two - but not excited in a good way.

Has anyone recently checked on the price of a 2x4?  Anything that gets built around here this year is going to need to be made of salvaged material.  We had some lightweight 1x material left over when we replaced the deck, but not enough to make three lids.  This meant they had to be built out of 2x4 scraps.  Which therefore means they are heavier and super stiff.  The large lightweight lids had a tendency to become sails in any sort of a wind.  If you were lucky this meant they could slam closed.  If you weren't lucky it meant they would wrench off a hinge.  We use old window weights to keep the lids weighted closed, and chains to keep them from resting the weight on the hinges.

I'd like to point out two significant changes to the lid design in case someday you want to build something like this yourself.  The panels are attached to the face of the 2x4 frame with special padded washers designed for twinwall polycarbonate.  You can find an example here.  You first drill a slightly larger hole and then secure the fastener.  The fastener allows for expansion and contraction.  Our friends actually included some of these when they gave us the salvaged panels and my husband even knew where he had put them all those years ago.

Because the panels are secured to the face of the frame, the bottom edge is open to allow any moisture trapped in the panel to run out.  Also, there is a piece of wood with a rabbet cut along the edge to overlap the top edge and prevent water from entering in the first place.

So now I am in business for spring planting.  The cold frame, while its base is weathered and warped, is sturdy and functional and looks clean and respectable.  A lot more sunlight is making its way in.  I have a thermometer in it so I can get a feel for its temperature swings with the new panels.  I have moved several potted herbs from my office window to the frame, and I am preparing flats so I can seed some annual flowers and lettuce.

Seed Starting - Step #2

 Today I transplanted my cauliflowers into individual cells.  They are on the edge of being too big, but they just formed their first true leaves over the past couple of days.  I decided to do cells instead of 3 inch pots just as a space saver.  They should be able to go outside two or three weeks from now and I will move on to tomatoes.

The first thing I did was prep my cells with water.  These are bottom watering cells so I added about an inch to each individual tray and let them sit for a few hours to fully absorb.  This makes the soil damp enough to form but not sloppy.  I use a dibble tool to make deep, wide holes in each cell.

Next I scoop the entire cell of seedlings out onto my work surface.  This is where the intensive cell planting makes the process different from seeding one by one into individual cells.  The roots are intertwined and need to be teased out.  But the advantage is you have at least the number you need, and probably a few extra, and you can choose the strongest plants with the best roots to plant and cull any weak plants.  This time I got 100% germination so I had a couple of seedlings "excess to requirements".

In light, dry starter mix teasing them out is easy.  

These seedlings have awesome root structures!  The best I've ever grown I think.  At this stage you might get just a single tap root.  Ideally you should always handle seedlings by their leaves and not the stem.  If you put too much pressure on the stem you can kink it and kill the plant, but if you tear off a leaf it will grow back.

 I make sure the holes are as wide as they can be then guide these huge root systems into the holes and use the dibble to arrange them and close the soil around the stems.

Then I top water each cell to get the air out.  The cells should be kept quite damp for a day or two until the seedlings appear to be recovered and begin to stand up again.  They go back under the grow light on the same settings but with the fan OFF for at least two days.  Not only do they not need the stress, but also I don't want the fan to dry out the soil or the plants themselves when they are not able to replace moisture quickly.  When it looks like they have all recovered and are taking up water well, then the fan can go back on at its previous setting and I will rotate each tray every day so all of the seedlings get a breeze, not just one side.