Seedlings so-so

As is usual, my flats do not look that great.  I use my own compost so the soil can be inconsistent in the small cells.  Interestingly, my own saved tomato seed (heirloom purple cherokee) is doing pretty well with the damp-off, and Amish Paste from Jonny's are almost 100% loss from damp off.

But it's so bad this year that I broke down this week and bought a bag of soil from Fleet Farm and started 3 new flats.  I made up another 251 cell onion flat, a 72 cell of peppers and a few more tomatoes, and a 72 of celeriac.  Have to get something going to plant!

The greenhouse experiment is going well.  Peas and radishes are the strongest.  I am making plans to move the greenhouse into the new garden soon.

Plowing and planting barley

I wanted to plow down the oats and pea strip to work in the trash and stop some crabgrass from getting established.  I did not expect plowing conditions this early but it was just barely dry enough to go in and plow.  I ended up plowing two strips about 12' wide each.  One strip was the oats and peas trash, and the other was the Daikon radish strip to the East.  These two strips had the garlic and Spring wheat separating them, so I just one-way plowed each strip and left the garlic and wheat alone as a king furrow.

I was using three abreast with the evener modified to give Sebastian in the furrow more of the work, which meant that the plow tracked in the furrow better.  I did this work over two days and it ultimately worked a little better with Rosie in the middle.  I was happy with their performance but when they are taxed the team sometimes fans out and the track gets wobbly.  Nevertheless, it was our best plowing attempt yet.

Here you can see how well the trash was getting worked in.  I am pretty happy with this.

It was just dry enough to plant a strip of barley in the place where I originally wanted to plant the Spring wheat.  On the above picture this is on the far right, directly next to the Winter wheat.  At the far end the seed was "mudded in" just a bit, but overall the strip was in good condition for planting.  I interplanted medium red clover in the same manner as with the Spring wheat.  This is black hulless barley which I have been using in soup all winter.  It will be a real treat if I can make it grow.  The ground was simply worked up with the cultimulcher and planted.  It was not plowed.

Dadant called over the weekend to say that the bee packages had arrived.  So on Monday, April 6, I installed on package.  This was in some newly cleared ground just to the East of the field.  It's colder than I would hope for and I do not see any nectar sources yet, but I went ahead and installed the package.  It was in the 40's I would say, and the queen looked very lethargic.  We'll see how it goes!

Spring wheat planted

I put in a small section of Red Fife spring wheat today.  The section is very small since I do not want to use up too much of this prime ground.  I wanted to put the wheat in the area next to the winter wheat, where vegetables were grown last year.  But this area is too wet to plant today.  There is rain in the forecast for the next few days.

Ground was worked up with a spike tooth (to spread out compost that was applied over winter) and then the cultimulcher, using all three donks.  I put the wheat right up against the garlic to save room.  I hope the wheat is not too tall to affect the garlic before it is harvested.

Using the Earthway seeder I drilled the wheat to 1" and made a second pass of medium red clover at 1/2" depth.  There were 6 rows of each, and the total strip is 5' wide x 120' long.

Yesterday and today I finally got to use my Christmas present Rogue scuffle hoe.  Wow, does it work!  The rows of garlic have a clean start to the season now.  Garlic has been poking up for a week or so.  I should add that this ground is just barely dry enough to be worked and walked on at this point, and nothing more.

Maple syrup harvest

I tapped nine trees in January, eight ash leaf maple and one Norway maple. The weather warmed very suddenly and I did not think there would be a harvest at all. However, I managed to boil down 3 quarts on March 19 and another 4 on March 31. Curiously, the later batch was a little lighter. There was very little weather during this window where the nights were in the 20's and the days in the 30's.  It was more like days into the 40's and 50's, and nights just barley down to 32.

First greenhouse planting

As an experiment, I seeded a stretch of the old garden and then rolled the new greenhouse on top of it. This was March 20. I used the Earthway Seeder and put in peas, spinach, lettuce, radishes, and some other stuff.

There were some hard frosts in the following week.  As of April 1 some stuff was poking through.

Using row covers for the cold nights. 

Direct seeding

The small greenhouse is not in the garden yet but I want to start learning what's possible with it. So I planted carrots, radishes, and lettuce in the corner today. Last frost date is nearly 2 months off we'll see what happens!

Still frozen in

Pretty impressive cold and snow for March 1!  The garden is still under a foot I would say. I dug out the cold frame to see if there was any spinach. There was nothing to harvest but it looked to be alive. 

I started a 48 cell flat of celeriac yesterday. The lettuce I started last week is just starting to germinate. The flats are not heated and the soil is around 59 degrees when I wake up. Should probably rig up a heater for long term, or put them on the fridge to get them started.