Started planning for spring planting

Leek and onion (walla walla) seedlings were planted on March 23, 2008, followed by a few freezing nights. I hope that they can survive.

Here is a pic of the veggies we had on March 9. All fresh from our garden.

In order to get ready for spring planting, we decided to pull the winter crops out. Parsnips and leeks become our regular dinner items: roasted root veggies, parsnip puree, leek risotto...plus our arugula salad with radishes and carrots, all from the garden...yum!

On Saturday (Mar 29), Mark went to get truck load of mushroom manure for our urban farm. On the same day, we have hail. Temperature still remains low during late March. It feels like below zero at night.

Sprouting Hops

Well, I noticed the hops a few days ago. Trying to push through the soil. Here they are; it's truly Spring when the hops start showing up. These are Cascade.

This is the first inch of about 30 feet of vine. They climb up to the railing of our patio, and then across the front of it. The cones are harvested at the end of August, dried, and vacu packed for the freezer.

I usually get about 60 ounce bags. I use them for aroma additions late in the boil, and also for dry hopping kegs while serving.

Exposing our garlic

Today we took the fabric mulch off the garlic patch. The tallest of the sprouts are about 3 inches. Parts of the patch show no sign of life, but the alfalfa mulch is thicker in those places. Nothing more to say ... here's the picture.

Snow Day!

Well, we got quite a dump of snow this week. My predicition that we were going to have a mild winter isn't really incorrect as the coldest it got was only a couple of degrees below zero. But, this is much colder than I expected. We got about 30 cm but it warmed up soon enough.

Regardless the radishes are still surviving in that cold frame. Our leeks and arugula have perked right up again. The fennel has looked better but I suspect it will come through ok too.

We haven't done anything in the garden with regard to life, save killing a few plants to eat. But, today was the first sunny day in a long time and while I was cleaning up the garage I noticed that at 2pm while the sun was shining on the whole garden, our radish seedlings were in shade. The front of the cold frame is too tall. The radishes though are still alive despite a couple of sub zero nights.

So, rather than shortening it, I made a trip to Rona (the second of the day as always seems to be the way). I picked up a glass scoring tool, and a piece of tongue and groove cedar fencing. I had some glass laying around that I had salvaged from a local teardown/reno. An hour later I had transformed the cold frame to more of a greenhouse. I'm quite pleased with it, and I'm expecting it to make a big difference.

We checked the garlic patch and they have sprouted and are just starting to poke up through the alfalfa mulch. We'll probably take the cloth mulch off in a week or two.

below zero

The temperature has dropped below zero yesterday, and it remains below freezing point during the night. I wonder if the seedlings will survive.

Transplanting Radishes

The radish seeds that we planted in peat pucks last Sunday germinated very quickly. The roots were poking out through the fabric of the pucks, so time to transplant. Admitedly the middle of January is quite early for putting them out, but what the hell. We planted them in the cold frame obviously, but if we get a cold spell I imagine they won't survive. Right now it's been mild and forecast to stay mild for at least a week. We're crossing our fingers.

That's a picture of them in a cut open milk carton to germinate. Follow the link to flickr for more pics.