I’m in an Entirely Off Topic mood this week. Today? Greenhouse gardening plans. I’m monitoring temps, using my inside/outside digital thermometer to determine when the greenhouse stays warm enough (even over night) to get my seeds going.
So far, I’ve seen a couple nights where it was around 15 degrees outside and around 27 inside. Too cold.
But, some nights it stays above 35 degrees, which could be OK. I hope to get some vegetable seeds in this weekend.
I’m skipping root veggies this year, after several with less-than-stellar results.
The 2010 Greenhouse Plan includes:
- Loose leaf lettuce
- Romaine lettuce
- Spinach
- Kale (dwarf blue scotch)
- Cucumbers
- Beans
- Peas
- Sugar Snap Peas
- Yellow squash
- Zucchini
- Acorn squash
- Pumpkins
I’m doing leafy things on the top bed in the greenhouse, and the peas and such in the lower bed.
I’ll put the cucumbers and all the squash in pots. I may start them inside and move the squash (at least) outside later. Tom may make me a couple of small outdoor beds, and I might try some squash out there.
I’ll plant some basil in a pot as well. I learned the hard way that basil appears to be an annual plant that doesn’t overwinter well inside. I trimmed it back a bunch at the end of the season to make pesto, and it just never bounced back.
However, the parsley did OK inside all this time. It’s a little leggy, but still green and such.
And, for the second winter in a row, I managed to keep rosemary alive inside. It too could use some pruning, but it’s doing well as long as I water it a few times each week.
It’s a doggone miracle, really. I’m not sure how I manage to keep that alive. For many years, rosemary died under my care.
Soil Work
I bundled up a couple weekends ago and amended my “soil” with a bunch more compost for the season. I’m mostly using the Square Foot Gardening method, which says fertilizers are not needed.
If my squash continue to die on the vine this year, then I may break down and try some additional intervention.
I like to avoid chemicals as much as I can. Clearly, someone upstream is using fertilizer, though, because our pond continues to overproduce algae like crazy. Tom pulls it out in sheets.
I bet if we tried to put fish in there they would get choked out. The overgrowth is that bad at times.
It was fun, though, when we did have fish. I loved watching them.
But, after that year when the pond froze early and fast and would couldn’t get them out in time, I just cannot risk it.
Longtime readers might recall that Lilly and Ginko later dug them out of the ice and ate them. :o(
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