The beginning of plant growth, what we think of as Spring, will obviously be set back several weeks. The spinach I planted last October that overwintered inside the plastic greenhouse is showing a little growth. Usually by this time it would be larger, but whenever the weather breaks it should grow quickly. At least the soil inside the greenhouse is no longer frozen.
The schedule for starting seeds was pushed back about two weeks. A few weeks ago I assembled the seedling rack. Since I had a set of casters stored in the minibarn that were taking up space it seemed like they might as well go on the legs of the rack as this thing when loaded is heavy and hard to move.
The top and bottom shelves are fastened in place with screws while the two middle shelves can be moved to any number of positions. I had some leftover Reflectix insulation from the cold frame project and attached that to the back side of the unit. This will reflect some light back onto the plants. The light unit has four 32W T8 lamps. Two of the lamps are GroLux bulbs (which look purple) and the other two are 8000K bulbs. This light setup gave very good results last year - thick bushy seedlings.
For my take on lights and plant growth here is the link to an earlier post.
I seeded some lettuce about ten days ago. Last week I seeded two flats of Ruby Ring onions, and two days ago I seeded the first set of brassicas - broccoli, kohlrabi, cabbage and tatsoi. When ready they will go into the plastic greenhouse. After the onions germinate and the weather moderates (it was 6 F this morning) I'll put the onions into the mobile coldframe. That will clear space for more seedlings. The growing season is getting underway, slow but sure.
5 comments:
Your seedling rack is very nice...I just threw mine together. I'm going to show yours to my husband, maybe he can make a nice copy.
Well, at least the poor weather has given you plenty of opportunity to put together some new "hardware"! :) We have no snow or ice to contend with, but loads of rain.
Lynda, This post shows how the seed rack was built: http://gardenvariety-hoosier.blogspot.com/search/label/Seed%20starting%20rack
Hello, I recently discovered your blog and have read through practically the whole thing now! I really like your approach and all the great information so thank you for sharing your experiences. I moved to Indianapolis this past year (from South Dakota) and wasn't able to get my garden started well with the crappy clay in the yard so I'm already looking towards next year. I was wondering what (if any) seed catalogs you would recommend that have plants that do well in Indiana?
Kjensen - I buy most of my seeds from Pinetree. They have a good selection and their prices are reasonable. I also buy some seeds from Johnny's that I know work well for me. As for varieties that work well for me, I try to name the variety of vegetable in my posts. At the end of the season I usually do a "winners and losers" post on the varieties that I planted. Yes the clay is a problem and amendments of organic matter help a great deal.
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