It has been awhile since my last post but that is because Teresa and I have been very busy. This is Memorial Day so I thought I would give a snapshot of where we are so far.
- Sowing – I am about a month behind on my sowing schedule. It is a hard thing to manage. For the longest time it was so cold, and we had no Sun. The green house was good and could hold a temperature, but the lack of Sun meant things were not growing well. All the trays had green mold looking stuff and I was worried we were going to start losing plants. I think I started too soon because the plants outgrew their 72 cell trays and stop growing but I thought it was because of the mold and lack of Sun. At some point we started transplanting into 2in pots and some plants just took off. That was cool. So now the focus was on prepping the field.
- Field Prep – Burning the holes in the ground cover took me awhile to figure out how to do well and it was hard to find a day that was not windy. Also, it is just a boring job so I would procrastinate. Because it was early in the season, we decided to make caterpillar tunnels for protection, and as a result I had pipe bending and all that goes into that. This is when I got behind.
- Late Frost – We were waiting for 4/23, that was supposed to be our last frost date. In the meantime, we were transplanting into 2in pots but that takes up more space and the greenhouse quickly ran out of space. I made a 20-foot caterpillar tunnel beside the greenhouse and put a space heater in it. I put the larger plants in there to buy time. As soon as we could we started transplanting into the field after 4/23 but I as doing everything just in time, tilling a bed, bending pipe, burning holes and we got behind. In hindsight this was a good thing because we got a late cold spell. I think it was about two weeks after 4/23 we got a frost, down into the upper 20s at night! We had the caterpillar tunnels for protections but that is cold. I ran 450 feet of extension cord so that I could put a space heater in the bed that had the Jewels of Opar. But an 80-foot bed is too much for a space heater and I lost almost 40 feed of Jewels of Opar. Luckily, I had a few that I did not transplant so maybe I will still have some to speak of.
- Holding Pattern – After the frost we stopped transplanting into the field, but the plants were bursting out of their little 72 cell trays. We transplanted into larger posts and used up all the space in the greenhouse and the temporary tunnel next to it. The forecast showed cold temperatures for the next two weeks! This was a low point.
- Spring! – Last week and this week it is like someone flipped a switch. Sun and 80 degrees during the day. We started transplanting into the field as fast as we could. I got good at prepping beds and burning holes in the ground cover and Teresa can transplant super-fast! It is amazing what two weeks of good weather can do.
- Memorial Day – It is now Memorial Day. The greenhouse is now too hot to use during the day. Not sure what to do about that, but we have been taking the trays out and setting on tables out in the open. I don’t see any reason to sow trays if I have to set them out in the open. I am thinking of just sowing the seeds directly in the field. More on that in my next post.
The picks below are taken on Memorial Day. This is when I started installing the irrigation and as you can see the field is starting to look like a flower farm!
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