Gardens

I said my planting would begin when I made that last post, on the 5th...it didn't, life got in the way of my best intent, but as of today its now begun, and this one bed is fully planted out now in 3 types of Radishes, two types of carrots, parsnips, and a little kale. I had soaked the soil about a week ago, the heat from the water storage had moved through the soil evenly. We have had a late spring storm the last two days, with next to no sun, infact the solar panels running the heating for the water were completely covered in snow, so little to no heat input into the beds for two days and I think we went down to -7 maybe -8 last night. I could not believe it when I went over to the bed and could see through the plastic, water drops that had condensed on the underside of the plastic, you can see them in this picture. Ok it looks like you cant see them cause I had to shrink down the picture, but its like a rain forest under there.

I lifted up the top and to my amazement coming off the soil was steam..not hot hot steam, but warm vapour. It dispersed as the wind picked up and blew it away, I didn't get a picture quick enough to capture it. I pushed my hand into the soil and everywhere I poked my hand the soil was toasty warm and moist. Anyway, this bed is now planted. I have high hopes for this project and method.

That will certainly give you a very warm bed and you will need to be tracking those temps so you don't overheat the plants, otherwise, for the heat lovers you will be rocking along.. check the soil temp because a good amount of the cold weather crops will not sprout if the soil is to warm, they want it on the cool side 🙂

I have also been planting out a number of things.. last weekend we did the one raised small bed with a frame topper and the raised farm gate garden, it had double rows of sugar snap pea's turnips and kohlrabi planted out and cabbage under the bell domes.

This weekend, we cleaned out and planted out the Been teepee for the spring.. inner ring is a early spring pea (it will be done by the end of june, and I will interplant beans in first week of june and then cut the pea's off at ground level), the middle row is broad beans another great cold weather crop and then the rest is done in mix of things.

I have another six double rows for pea's to plant out as well as a huge area that has been done out into early spring cold weather greens

Wondering if you folks could help me out with a problem. I'm starting onions from seed for the first time this year. They have great germination rates and seem to start off strong, but they never seemed to thicken out. I've been letting them grow to 3-4 inches and then shearing them as was recommended by a book I have. Recently most seem to have just shriveled or fallen over and died. I have some in peat pods and some in just potting soil and the results were the same.

Onions from seed can be very tricky.. from a "longer term" view, garlic and onion chives and Walking onions are the ones I would be looking at in terms of get them into your area and so forth..

The biggest issue with starting onion from seeds is that they need such long days time wise and most of them are also light effected, so you never really get bulbs of quality at the end of the season.

Having said that.. If I wanted to work with them, I plant them in end of Feb, one hair trim and then then into the garden as soon as possible.. So many reasons for them to fail, no way to guess what caused them to die.

We have wild chives all over the place on our property, they've literally become a weed. I've seen the walking onion at the local botanical gardens before but I honestly thought it was ornamental, I didn't realize that it actually grows onions! I've been interested in trying garlic for a while, but I'm not quite sure how to go about it. Can it be easily started in the spring, or is it best to wait until the fall? I was planting some seed outside yesterday and I've got some extra space due to my now lack of onion seeds. I'm going to just get some sets for now and was wondering if it was worth planting a few cloves.

Also, has anyone experimented with shade or forest gardening? We've got some old forest on our property and I want to experiment with shade gardening. I have a ton of extra beet seeds that I scattered in a few places, and was thinking of trying garlic and onion. I've seen onion growing wild locally, and have heard of wild garlic before too.

I have not had any success growing onions from seed. Only from seed onions. If your seedlings start out well then fall over & die, they may be victims of "damping off" - basically molding due to lack of air circulation. Can you run a fan in the area?

The bath tub raised gardens from last year, now planted out in Kale.

Potato planting in the raised gardens begins Thursday. Some Yukon Gold, a lot of German butterball, a good bit of Dakota Pearl, a tasting of Sangre, and Sieglinde. A well diversified lot, moving away from the typical russet that can be found any time.
The raised beds for these I don't have Solar electrically heated water storage for but the soil has been prepaired by saturation with water, and brought up to a warm temp by just covering with clear plastic (these beds lined with r5 foam insulation) and letting the sun do the work. I have a frame of cedar stretch over with clear poly that goes over top once the bed is planted out... by next year I will have these beds electrically solar heated as well..I just cant get every thing done at once...I am slowing down.....hoping to at least get two more raised beds built this year.

I may have gambled wrong planting early, - 4 when I got up, and the forcast is nothing but cloud until Thursday, with overnight lows of roughly -3-4 each night and 10 to 15 cm of snow on the way. That's a long stretch to go for those raised beds with little sunlight.....such is the life of a risk taker, if your not pushing the boundries your just taking up space...run with scissors every day!

Was about to plant my potatoes today. Was a bit chilly but ok. Got the tools and my seed potatoes then it started snowing... I'll wait another week!

Well this will be a test, I am not worried about the water heated bed it has already been proof tested to -8 but the one potato bed I got planted has no extra heat input (yet), and this weather isn't forcast to break until Thursday, -5 last night.

this bed has 24 potato plants in it.

plastic over top

I put the top on to keep the snow off

This is one of the worst springs I can remember

The question for me is if it can keep its heat because it does not reach the ground.. if that bed touched the ground under and did not have the cold coming under it, I would say.. NO worries.. with the double layers you have.. slower start from the chill but otherwise, I would lay my money on just fine but with that bottom open..

Its anyone's game lol

I had a different issue, even in my free form raised beds, the rains came so hard that it filled the swells, and overwent sideways.. I will have to remake the washed out gully in the bed and replace the pea's that were drowned out.

I want to start a patch of rhubarb at the cabin this year. Also looking for hardy fruit trees. Any thoughts people? Thinking about a raised bed garden with a wire roof to keep the deer and tomato stealing squirrels out.

rhubarb will do fine as long as you prep the ground well, and remember no picking 1st year, light picking only once second year and then regular after that.. as for the fruit trees, is the cabin where you live full time or part, if part.. go fruit bushes.. gooseberry, currents, raspberry, blackberry, etc. they will be great producers, with none of the same fuss at the hard fruit tree

Best of luck

Cant believe this, I havnt seen the sun since last Saturday, not even a hint of it...some snow most every day, lows below 0 ( 0 to -4) each night. I cant remember a spring this cold and sunless......

My Bathtubs of kale planted on the 20th don't seem to mind the cold, I lifted up the plastic and they are breaking through the surface of the dirt now.