Thanks to commentor Jeffery, in the Philadelphia area.
(If it were New England — and our daffodils in the warmest micro-climate by the heat-leaking, south-facing basement window will be reemerging in the next couple of weeks — we’d know to expect at least one more snowstorm. Winter’s not over until the first daffs get frosted over!)
======
Texas freeze killed winter produce, with some food prices expected to spike https://t.co/OKISGhUsmS via @washingtonpost @lreiley
— Robert Jameson (@rhjameson) February 26, 2021
Seems like growing our own leafy greens, wherever possible, will remain a useful project. Which reminded me of this enticing Washington Post article on gardening under cover:
In the depths of winter, Niki Jabbour steps out of her suburban home and extracts fresh veggies from the endless produce aisle known as her backyard garden.
She reels off the choices: “carrots, parsnips, beets, scallions, kale, winter lettuces, arugula, parsley, mâche, tatsoi . . . ”
This January luxury, you might think, must occur in California or Florida, but Jabbour gardens in her hometown of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Like many gardeners in northern states and Canadian provinces, she has learned to extend the season by growing hardy veggies under covers. Climate change is a factor, in that milder winters make this enterprise more viable, but it still comes down to finding ways to wrap plants against the cold.
For Jabbour, a garden writer, broadcaster and Web publisher, this “undercover gardening” has been a part of her life for at least 20 years and is now fully expressed, both professionally and personally. Her family gets as much as three-quarters of the household produce from the garden. And she gets to tell the world about it, specifically in her new book, “Growing Under Cover”…
Anybody got opinions about Jabbour’s work? I’ll admit I’m interested in row covers mostly as a protection against pests — invasive seeds and animals — more of a problem with my raised beds than one might think, given that we’re on *two* official Superfund sites.
Indoor farms, which use vertical growing technology, artificial light, temperature control and minimal soil to grow plants, is gaining ground and investors https://t.co/AOGfmcWefo pic.twitter.com/42aOTReHCI
— Reuters (@Reuters) February 20, 2021
***********
I’m optimistic that some of you will soon be sending me photos of this year’s emerging seedlings and yard prep…
What’s going on in your garden (planning / prep), this week?
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
satby
@rikyrah: Good morning!
satby
AL@top: Anybody got opinions about Jabbour’s work?
The year I had planted a number of my tiny young shrubs I covered each of them in winter with plastic domes made out of milk jugs or dog cookie containers. It concerned me that none went fully dormant that winter, they stopped getting bigger but stayed green. So I imagine Jabbour’s system works fine. I’m going to have to get her book.
I still dome for new plantings. This year I also used an old quilted dog blanket over some pots to see if the plants overwinter under cover on my porch, but it’s an experiment so if they don’t it’s no real loss. Edited for verbosity.
Jeffery
I put arugula seeds in the ground late August early September in Philadelphia. It winters over. I will let it flower then go to seed for this falls seeds.
There is a pocket park just up the street from me. A few years ago I started to seed it with arugula seeds for the spring flowers. Arugula gets a pretty flower spike of four petal pale ivory flowers. It is now seeding itself in the park. Most people looking at it have no idea what it is. If they only knew this is what they pay a lot for at a grocery store.
Link to flower photo:
https://trueloveseeds.com/products/ice-bred-arugula
OzarkHillbilly
@rikyrah: @Baud: @satby:
Blech.
MomSense
I’ve been pretty dismayed by my summer gardening, so maybe I should try covered winter gardening.
I’m really not sure what to plant for the changing summer conditions.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: This is it, the day I start my seeds. I’m at least a week later than I wanted but hoping starting them in the AeroGarden is a little faster. And I intend to start only 6 tomato plants this year. We’ll see if I can limit myself ?
satby
@MomSense: What’s changed? Is it hotter, or drier? Is the season length still the same? I wouldn’t worry about what’s supposed to grow in my area so much, I would pick plants that work in the new conditions, but understand I might have to protect them over winter or treat some as annuals. Stuff like tomatoes I basically just grow in pots now, so that a late or early frost can be countered by moving them under shelter and back out again (why I’m only going to do 6 this year).
p.a.
Don’t know if it’s warming-related, other causes, or a combination, but I used to get spotted salamanders and slugs in my yard, and now it’s redbacks and snails (some slugs too, but I NEVER had snails.)
Zinsky
After a mind-numbing string of below zero temperatures, Minneapolis came out of the deep freeze last week and it was 45 sunny degrees yesterday! I even saw people in shorts! Incredible. The week ahead looks good too, with highs in the 40s all week. Way too early to think about gardening here, though.
Here’s hoping Trump falls off the stage at CPAC today and is both humiliated and painfully injured!
MomSense
@satby:
We’ve had cold, rainy spring followed by hot temperatures and drought or near drought conditions.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: I started my peppers and eggplants 2 weeks ago. Everything germinated just fine with the exception of the Real Black eggplants. Finally gave up waiting and started another set. Hope this bunch takes, these were going to be my grilling eggplants.
Gonna start my tomatoes today. I don’t know how many I am going to grow. Hope to have 8 Amish Paste for my salsa and toma sauces. Some Green Zebras, Brandywines, Mushroom Baskets, Amana Oranges, one or 2 others.
satby
@MomSense: That’s been the case around here too. But that can be normal for the midwest.
debbie
Not in my neighborhood, but snowdrops have been sighted in other parts of town. I say winter’s finished! ⛅️
Ken
It interests me but it’s paywalled. Is it like your home-made covers, with basically one per plant, or does she have larger ones? Also can you harvest in low temperatures without killing the plant?
satby
Shit, I just put food out for my orange feral neighbor cat, and he’s limping badly. He’s been able to evade humane traps so I can try setting one but he won’t fall for it. I can try lacing some food with antibiotics, but I don’t know if it’s infected or a broken leg. Dammit, I’ve become very fond of him, and he will likely be a goner without medical care. Keep your cats inside people, it’s a brutal life outdoors.
Geminid
Another day of rain in Greene County, Virginia, on top of six weeks of on-and-off rain and snow. So my garden space is too wet to work, but I still hope to cut away honeysuckle from a fence on which I hope to trellis beans and cucumbers later in the spring.
I got some bonus garden space when the pond on the land I caretake drained. The 40-year old standpipe failed after heavy December rains. Beavers have already patched it up and the pond is filling, but my friend Debbie and I will take out the addition they built to raise the pond, so there will be a twenty foot margin of bare earth between the margins of the old and new ponds. In May we will plant pumpkins and squash.
When I saw the drained pond, I immediately thought of squash. The climate here is great for that plant family, but squash bugs are hard to control. Hopefully we’ll get season before those darn insects move in. Besides injecting a virus that turn nice plants into mush, squash bugs are just nasty. I agreed with a friend, a Dutch immigrant, when she said “Da squashbox drive me crazy!”
geg6
My John has all his seeds ready to get sown this week. He’s got it all set up in the greenhouse and plans to get started, probably on Tuesday, when it warms up after a chilly day tomorrow. Supposed to be sunny most of the week, so the seedlings should get a good start. He’s never happier than when he can go into the greenhouse and putter around with plants. Not my thing at all but I do love all the fresh veggies.
Immanentize
Good morning All!
Here near Boston, we are looking at teen temperatures again Monday and Tuesday night, then highs in the low thirties. No Spring for us yet. But I did plant some seeds in my paper towel/toilet paper roll seedling starters I made. Very excited to try this recycle and grow idea. Not so much to save on starter cups, but just a good project.
Immanentize
Also saw a young ginger squirrel this morning in the yard. That was pleasing.
Gin & Tonic
@Immanentize: Really hoping for low temps, as a tree crew is scheduled to come in this week for some of the dead oaks, and with the ground starting to thaw it’ll be a real mess. The original schedule had them coming two weeks ago, which would have been a lot better.
raven
Daffodils and lenten roses up and 78 this afternoon.
OzarkHillbilly
@Geminid: I found the cure for squashbugs last year and it worked here. I didn’t plant my squash until July 1st, which is after squashbug season. I just planted a patty pan and some Romanesco zuchs last year and all went well. I’m gonna do some winter squash, Delicatas and Galeux D’ Eysines this year too. It is probably too much to ask of the Galeux but I’m gonna try anyway.
I read of this trick at Baker Creek, but a quick perusal just now didn’t turn it up. Anyway, it worked for me last year so I’m doing it again this year.
satby
We’re getting a cloudy, rainy high of 54° today, but only 35 tomorrow. Hoping enough of the remaining ice melts off before it all freezes again tonight.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Braggart.
Immanentize
@Gin & Tonic: my ground is still rock frozen. It will take a week of temps above freezing day and night to make it tillable.
Dorothy A. Winsor
It went up to 50 yesterday! When I was out for my walk, the snow piles were receding like glaciers. Everyone I ran into was giddy.
Ken
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Same here, and — knock wood — no flooding yet. We had a lot of snow but it was pretty fluffy, probably no more than two inches of rain.
Gin & Tonic
@Immanentize: I bet a lumber truck will “till” it.
satby
@Ken: Here’s a bit more from the article. Her cold frame raised beds are pretty thick, they look like they’re insulated on the sides.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: I was going to say “showoff”, but same, same.
Baud
I believe this has sufficient nexus to gardening.
Not a single Republican vote, for the libertarians in the audience.
Geminid
@OzarkHillbilly: Thank you! I will tell my Dutch friend about this late planting tactic, and delay planting cucumbers in what is now my upper garden.
satby
@satby: And I found this source for all sorts of row covers, from light summer weight to heavy freeze (or so claimed).
raven
@Geminid: I saw your comment about Asleep at the Wheel. Did you know
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: My somewhat conservative SiL and stepdaughter have decided to take up gardening and are starting with the legal maximum number of cannabis plants. I am wondering how their conservative suburban neighbors will react.
Geminid
@Baud: Cannabis is a great gardening plant. Not as easy to grow as sunflowers, but not much harder. I hope to be able to buy good seeds at a store next year. The psychoactive properties of cannabis are disaggreeble to many people, but the low THC varieties contain healthy cannabinoids that are easy to access by using alcohol separation to form a tincture. A friend does this, and also uses butter as a solvent. She makes a good brownie that way.
OzarkHillbilly
@Geminid: Huh, I’ve never had a problem with squashbugs and cukes.
Jeffro
@Baud: elections have consequences!
Geminid
@OzarkHillbilly: Same plant family. Hope I haven’t jinxed you.
Ken
Predicting future legal arguments:
OzarkHillbilly
@Geminid: According to the google:
I’ve never had them attack my melons either.
Geminid
@OzarkHillbilly: They might do well to get varieties that are less smelly. The neighbors might still smell them, but not like some varieties that really stink.
zhena gogolia
Opened the New York Times. Maureen Dowd, “Democrats High on Their Own Supply.”
Where’s that smelly fish I wanted to wrap?
SiubhanDuinne
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Supposed to be 75° here this afternoon :-)
Planetjanet
In November, I planted 60 tulips so that I would have something to look forward. There are 8 little tips poking through the dirt. I am checking them every day.
Gvg
In the 80’s here this weekend. It was cold about 3 weeks ago. No rain in over a week which I’d normal for Florida spring. I harvested 7 broccoli plants last weekend, cooked and froze extra. It was bolting so I couldn’t wait. 1 cauliflower yesterday. I shall cook tonight. Planting potato and beans today, late but I had 2 infected teeth treated and didn’t have the energy before. Starting second round of seed tray starting the rest of the day. I shall also drive around looking for neighbors throwing away bags of leaves instead of composting it. Oak leaf fall has started. Live oaks are evergreen but they change their leaves for new. In the spring, new baby leaves push the old leaves off. For about a week some trees will look sort of bare until the new growth unfolds. The branches seem covered in kind of gold fuzz which is new really soft leaves unrolling. Then they get chlorophyll and turn lime green. Not all trees do the same week and some are more gradual. There is a lot of individual variation. It lasts about a month and is followed by pollen, a lot of pollen.
I have decided my lettuce is a bust again. It came out too bitter for anyone to enjoy. I will try some other varieties next year. Florida grows lettuce in winter commercially so I know it’s possible.
OzarkHillbilly
@Geminid: They hate their neighbors. I suspect the stinkier the better.
eclare
@satby: Oh no! Poor little kitty…
Geminid
@Geminid: I am hoping that cannabis legalization will spur research into medical uses. There is variety named Charlotte’s Web that was found to be effective in treating a terrible childhood epilepsy disorder. Some years ago the Virginia General Assembly legalized products obtained from this strain after hearing persuasive testimony from parents of these children.
Cannabis may have other helpful medical uses yet to found. I think the Veterans Administration has already been studying medical uses under a waiver of federal law. Cannabis definitely lessens physical pain, and a friend with lupus believes that it helps her with the illness.
Geminid
@OzarkHillbilly: Then they should see if they can get some “Schuyler Skunk.” That is a locally famous variety from Nelson County.
OzarkHillbilly
I resemble this tweet:
oldgold
As I noted here a couple of weeks ago, in the springtime of my dotage, I have learned that at least some robins winter here on the tundra. As such, spotting them is not necessarily a harbinger of spring.
My other gold standard for the coming of spring has been daffodils. Happy to see them featured in today’s gardening post.
Long ago, a mean and unreasonable sixth grade teacher cruelly demanded I memorize and recite these words of Wordswoth.
“I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.”
Too late, I came to understand my sixth grade teacher had given me a gift.
“For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.“
dexwood
We’ve been adding lettuce, spinach, and kale to our salads all Winter from my small, south facing, covered, raised bed. I sowed the seeds in October, then covered them with an agricultural fabric in November. By early December we were picking leaves from the plants two or three times a week. They don’t get very tall, but they are compact and leafy. Bright, abundant Winter sunlight in Albuquerque is my friend. Last week, I sowed more of the same, and carrots, in a different bed which I also covered. The covers will be removed in late March. I’ve been doing this for 5 or 6 years and we pretty much have some fresh salad greens all year.
Geminid
@Geminid: Besides a cannabis variety, Schuler Virginia is famous as the setting of “The Waltons.” People, including some from Europe and Japan, visit the Waltons Museum in Schuyler. Earl Hamner grew up there, and drew upon his childhood experieces in his career as a Hollywood scriptwriter.
The soapstone quarries that supported the Schuyler community were discovered when U.S. cavalry came through in late winter, 1865. A Vermont cavalryman recognized the rock as similar to the soapstone he knew from back home. Soapstone was widely used for insulators in the early years of the electrical industry, later for lab table tops and cheap paving material. Now soapstone is prized as a beautiful material for countertops, but is quite expensive as it is no longer quarried.
OzarkHillbilly
Not too late to appreciate the gift.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
Similarly, I spend a great deal of time trying to decipher my handwriting on the to-do list. Sometimes I have to give up and assume whatever it was will appear on a future to-do list.
debbie
@oldgold:
I’d forgotten that one. Thanks!
oldgold
@OzarkHillbilly:
True, but too late to thank her.
Jay
@satby:
set a trap with food, but the trap not triggered.
when the feral gets used to the free food with no trap,
set the trap.
hopefully this works.
joel hanes
Bushel Boy Inc just erected a 55-acre hydroponic year-round grow operation for tomatoes in my home town. I was thinking “great: heirloom tomatoes year-round”
But they force growth with light, and of course, greenhouse roofs are transparent. So that entire corner of the town now has so much sky-glow that one can usually count the visible stars on one’s fingers.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: Me too.
OzarkHillbilly
@oldgold: Not unusual for a teacher.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
We had a sunny afternoon in between rain days yesterday, so I did some clearing of brush and pest plants that had gotten overgrown late last summer and fall. A few weeks ago I worked out a big wishlist of garden to-dos that we wanted to see happen before spring really got going.
It’s weird for me to be noticing and working in the garden so much. This is some funny side effect of lockdown.
I bought a portable mini-greenhouse last year that finally arrived around November, and I’m eager to start some seeds germinating early in March. I don’t think it’s safe to put things in the ground till well into April.
I’m probably going to build a raised cedar bed in the next few weeks. I was looking at plans for a simple one, just boards wrapped around four corner posts. The plan is for that to become our herb garden.
Jay
@Geminid:
soapstone is amazing as a carving material,
and for fireplaces.
Geminid
@Jay: I love soapstone. The Schuyler quarries produce beautiful stone with a range of hardness, and the softer stone is carvable. It can all be shaped with diamond grinder tools that are now fairly inexpensive. The Schuyler quarries produced enough that it was used for building, layed flat and coursed like brick. There is a large two story building in Schuyler made of soapstone. It was the infirmary.
Soapstone also holds heat well. I have a 20lb. scrap that I’ll heat on my stove, then wrap in a towel and put under my bed covers. It stays warm for hours, and got a lot of use this winter.
WaterGirl
Speaking of growing your own green, leafy stuff. I think this is week 5 of my lettuce aerogarden. Loving it!
J R in WV
Heavy rain all night last night, flooding warnings posted yesterday. So the tiny pond is filled, and the liner as it sometimes does, has floated, with water-logged leaves lifted to the top of the pond.
So when I went to let the black puppoes out the front door, it looked like the pond was alive with frogs as they all took a jump and dove underwater. At least a dozen, perhaps a couple doz. Probably woods frogs, who spend most of the summer just under the leaves on the forest floor. Luv the various frogs that come to the hillside pond.
Our helleboros stay up all year, but have started blooming a little while ago. Daffodils have shoots up, no sign of blooms yet. V early spring stuff still mostly dormant.
NoraLenderbee
If anyone’s still reading, the books Four-Season Harvest and The Winter Harvest Handbook by Eliot Coleman are all about winter gardening and extending the season. He lives in Maine.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
I think it’s time to get eating!
waratah
@oldgold: I don’t remember what grade we studied this poem but it has always been my favorite!
MoCaAce
I use a cold frame on the garden in the spring to get a jump on things but never in the fall as a season extender. Last year I had spinach, lettuce, peas, beats and radishes in the ground by April 1 (in northern WI). I was eating fresh veggies when most of my neighbors were just starting to plant their gardens. We have about 6″ of snow left but that should be gone by weeks end. The cold frame goes up as soon as the frost is out of the ground.
satby
@Jay: yeah, I work with a rescue group and we trap all the time. This guy has evaded traps a number of times. We may need to net him, in the meantime I’m going to be putting out food with amoxicillin in case it’s an infected paw from a wound.
WaterGirl
@debbie: I have been eating! You can start harvesting on day 21, and I have eaten lettuce multiple times. You can either trim off the top third of a leaf or you can trim the whole leaf as close to the bottom as you can. I have done both, but I mostly take the whole leaf. This is definitely enough to keep two people in lettuce.