With little else to do on this 10 degree day, Tammy and I opened the gardening season with some new changes. Seeds are being sprouted in the basement where temperatures are far more constant (albeit cooler by day) than in the wood-stoved, glass-lined Florida room previously used. While suspicious of the impact, I did pay $26 for a ‘grow mat’ (basically a plastic heating pad) that allegedly boosts temperatures by 10 – 20 degrees over ambient–but it sure doesn’t feel like it to me.
After sprouting, two fluorescent light fixtures housing both ‘normal’ and ‘grow’ bulbs will carry seedlings to their ‘hardening off’ stage, when they’ll move to the sun porch to acclimatize before going into the ground.
These earliest-into-garden spring plants consist of three cabbage varieties, sugar snap peas, bunching onions and leeks, and broccoli. By transplanting them under their plastic tunnels, we aim to push ’spring’ back by about 4-6 weeks–so that’s what our timing is based upon. The 2008 garden proved clearly the potential for very early spring transplanting into a temperature-moderated, plastic tunnel environment.
We do plan to wait considerably longer before planting ‘hot weather’ loving peppers which we also learned definitely need protection from marauders. For two seasons now, we have had to let them ‘re-grow’ from nibbled nubs–needlessly consuming precious gardening days! We won’t tie up that space so early but will plant more spinach, broccoli, and other veggies that play out early enough to allow sufficient maturation time for the peppers.
Posted in Uncategorized | 
No Comments » | January 21st, 2009
