High & Dry Farm

Give me a break!  Snow this morning.

Starting March 12 I have been separating the 5-10 tomato seedlings in each 3.5″ pot into individual 4″ pots.

Monday the overnight low was 24 degrees – 15 degees colder than Sunday’s weather report predicted, and the ground was frozen solid by morning. Hell, I can predict the weather more accurately than that.  I was sure that all the baby veg I set out in the garden Saturday and Sunday would be goners, but this morning the temperatures warmed, and son-of-a-gun, all the plants survived in good shape.  I guess the plants were smart enough to jack up the levels of their sugar/antifreeze.
The tomatoes in the greenhouse, snuggled under a remay blanket and warmed by a little 100W heater, did just fine.  In fact, this morning, a few of the varieties are sprouting their first true leaves. That means that I will be transpanting them all into individual 4″ pots quite soon. Speaking of which, a big shipment of 4″ pots should arrive today via UPS from Nursery Pot Liquidators.  I have never done business with these folks before, so I am holding my breath, but so far they seem to be incredibly professional. They are so politically correct it takes my breath away.  They employ at-risk youths to recycle, package and sell used plastic nursery pots. How very Oregonian.

Update – The pots arrived March 11.  They are excellent – heavy duty and in good condition.

Planted these varieties –

Eggplants

Long Purple

Apple Green

Twilight hybrid

Thai

Peppers

Cayenne

Bell King

King of the North (early bell)

Sweet Banana

Italian Frying

Jimmy Nardello (Italian frying)

Maroni Rossi (Italian frying)

Sweet Marconi ((Italian frying)

Paprika

Jalapeno

Guadillo

Pasilla

Bull Nose

Tennessee Cheese

 

Yesterday was almost like summer – sunny and 65 degrees, but today is chilly and snow is predicted for Wednesday!  Hopefully they are wrong. 

Today I checked and hoed the vegetables that I sowed under my plastic hoop cloche.  Everything has sprouted, and is looking good.  Radishes, lettuce, brocolli raab, cabbage, and spinach are all up.  The germination of my beet seed was pretty patchy.

Over the last week I have been transplanting starts from the green house into the garden, and I am continuing today.  Anything that has sprouted its first true leaves is a candidate to be transplanted.  This early date should be save for anything in the cabbage and mustard families, but it is a little chancy for lettuce – a hard frost might do them in, so I am setting out only a few lettuce plants, and transplanting the other lettuce seedlings into 3.5” pots in the greenhouse.  Plants set out in the garden include cabbage, chinese cabbage, parsley (flat leaf), brocolli, cauliflower.

Baby parsley.

The last few days have been uncharacteristically sunny and dry, with daytime temperatures reaching 55 and night time lows of 35.  The seedlings in the greenhouse have responded to the sunlight with a spurt of growth.

The onions have all sprouted, although the red torpedo’s are a day or two behind the other onion varieties.  Today I moved the onions into the greenhouse. Skies have been very grey and dark, with pretty contant drizzle, and daily highs around 50.  Although I see no sign of Spring the trees disagree, as the plum trees are threatening to blossum.