I planted onion seeds in my greenhouse a couple of days ago. I also, planted mixed salad greens. My green house is not warm enough to plant warm weather crops until around april, but I will be starting those then for this comming summer.

This past storm ruined the sensative crops for the west coast and it is showing in the produce sections of your stores. Most frost sensative produce is over $4 a lb. Sure was glad to have my salad garden under a row cover for delicious salad greens.

Those of us who have not practiced winter salad gardens under a row cover are paying the price or doing without. This coming summer would be a good time to build a row-covered grden area for the winter. Remember the plants do not grow at all during the coldest times of the winter, so you want to choose loose leaf plants and just pick off leaves here and there throughout the winter. A family of four should have 2 to 4 3' by 10' rows for their winter greens.

Good luck on your garden. I will be stopping by to see what you are doing.

 

Thank you, Ramona. I've stayed out of the produce isles, so far, even though my greens are done for the winter. I'll have to check on prices next time I'm in town.

I plan on building a large hoop over 2 or 3 of my beds and covering with plastic. Then also use row cover inside. I think I can get even farther into the winter that way. May even get some growth on the sunny days. We'll see, but that is the plan.

 

Ramona, Greens prices haven't been too bad in my area.

Slackjaw, Last year I wrote all my records on a calendar, too bad it got tossed at the end of the year.
I'll be starting my Eggplants and Peppers in a week or so.

Keep up the post

 

I'll be starting my Eggplants and Peppers in a week or so.

How do you start your peppers?

 

First haircut this morning! :

 

Your onions are doing great!

I can't start plants in our house this year, because my husband had a heart transplant in April. He needs a very warm environment to ward off terrible body chills. So the house stays at 75 to 80 degrees day and night.

I feel this is too much of a temperature change to put them out in the much cooler green house to harden off.

 

I think you're right, it would be quite a change, but maybe as the temps get closer you can get a bit of a jump on things. I wish all the best to your husband.

 

Slackjaw, why do you trim your onions? Is it to promote a stronger root system?

 

It encourages new growth and a stronger plant and will result in bigger bulbs. You can also trim the roots a bit before you set them out in your garden.

 

Finally snapped some pics.

Moved the first round of onions into the greenhouse. They are doing well.

Broccoli and cabbage are up.

Got a round of early tomatoes going. These are Early Girls, a Burpee hybrid. Tasty fruit and early + HEAVY producer. I've gotten fruit in 50 days from this variety.

Thanks for looking!

 

Lookin good!

 

Wish I had a greenhouse. My onions are doing well. Thanks for the tip about trimming them.

 

Great looking plants. Your onions look like they are almost ready to put out in the garden.

Boy you better have a big garden to put all those plants in. Ha! Ha!

 

Thanks everyone!

Ramona, I start plants for a few other family members, too. I've sold surplus and even given to neighbors, coworkers and whatnot.


I had another thread on here called "fall crops" and had plugged in some spinach on 11/17/12 and covered with row cover to see what would happen.

This was the thread: http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=261512

The post:

Well, I plugged in the spinach the other day. Four rows, 25' and they've taken hold pretty nice. I know I wont get anything until Spring, if I can get them through the winter, so this should be a good experiment. Still pretty mild here, haven't had any really solid frosts, today was in the upper 50s. Hell, I haven't even cranked up the wood stove yet. I wouldn't mind a repeat of last Winter.

I believe I started the seed around the first of November. Here is the spinach today.

I double covered around the middle of January, and our winter was pretty mild in the mid Atlantic. It turned out pretty nice I think, and I hope to get a few cuttings from this patch.

 

Nice, looks like it worked well, did you try anything other than the spinach?

 

I had some tatsoi, Tokyo Bekana (hybrid mustard) and a head lettuce all with a single row cover on. I was picking from them all the way up until around the end of January, then we started getting down in the teens and they all were toast. The spinach was the only thing I threw an extra cover on, and I did that because it was so young compared to the others I was picking from. I only hope it doesn't bolt right away. We'll see.

 

Got this little kitchen gadget for my birthday. Looking forward to ripping some kraut out.

 

Looks cool, is it handmade?

Happy birthday

 

Made by a company called Weston.

Thank you!

 

Tomatoes, Peppers, onions in the greenhouse. I got more coming up under a shoplite. Tomatoes out the yingyang.

Some pac choi. Love this stuff stir fried in butter. I put it in my smoothies, too.

First round of Vitamix fodder. Cutting lettuce.

This is the 2nd round of onions, started under the proper sign. They seem almost as big as the ones planted 3 weeks before.

 

Okay, explain the vitamix fodder, you have me curious.:

 

Yup, lettuce for the Vitamix. I've been hooked on these green smoothies ever since I got it a year ago.

I grow patches of greens, like this:

And blend them into smoothies. It's a great and easy way to get massive amounts of green veggies. All veggies for that matter. I can eat 1-2 pounds of lettuce a day. (on average, I eat a half to a pound a day) I blend in apples and bananas to sweeten the deal and make it more palatable.

 

I would guess that they will go in his Vitamix machine for juicing

 

What kind of Tomatoes and Peppers are you growing?

 

I have several at various stages. In the pics there, I have 4th of July and Big Boy. I also have Cherokee Purple, Prudens Purple, Omar's Lebanese, Giant Delicious, Hawaiian Pineapple, Roma Grande, and Opalka started. I know I'm forgetting something. I need to get some cherry toms started. I start for several others as well, and will sell the rest at the market. For peppers I have King Aurthur, Pasillo Bajio, Cayenne. I need to get some jalapenos and a sweet horn started too, I'm starting to feel like the eight ball is passing me.

 

We have a vitamix, I make strawberry ice cream with it, you make green stuff with apples. I'm sure it tastes good, but I stay with the ice cream. LOL:

 

Since hubby is diabetic, I can't make him a big glass of greens or fruit smoothies, because of the consentration of sugar. And I refuse to give him a 1/4 cup of great tasting smoothy drink and tell him that is all he can have. Ha! Ha! We worked really hard on his diet after his heart transplant to get him off the diabetic shots. Now I just feed him naturally good food.

The garden has grown over this past winter to add more fruits and vegies to the freezer to get us through the winter. I do want to see about getting a couple huggle rows started in our meadow for next year.

Great pictures and I will be checking back to see how you're doing.

 

Thank you Ramona. I'm glad to hear your DH is eating well, and that your garden is growing. I haven't tried the hugel method as of yet. I did lay down a bunch of bark strips into a flower bed beside the house where I keep a small kitchen garden. The bark was left over from splitting wood. I usually throw it in the chicken pen and let them pick out the bugs, but I had an abundance of it that year and did a Lasagna type bed using that. It has been two years and it is all still pretty solid. Last Spring I just poked some holes down through it and transplanted that way just to see what happened. They did very well.

I woke up to this today, ugh. Old Man Winter just don't want to let go around here!

 

I got snow today also, my Dad called it an "onion snow" it's the 10th coldest March on record in NJ

 

Thanks, I had to look that up. Pretty neat.

Yeah this cold is going to hold out right to the bitter end, it seems.

Snapped a shot of some cilantro that survived the Winter in my kitchen garden.

 

A shot in the greenhouse yesterday. Was a beautiful sunny day around 50's, snow is gone, gone, gone, and today looks like it will be the same. Worm moon tonight, send in the Robins!

 

Awesome, what kind of greenhouse do you have? I have been considering the 10X12 Harbor Freight greenhouse, but doing some heavy duty reinforcement on it.

 

It's home made, attached to the side of a run-in shed. Made from 2X4s and a skin of woven poly stretched over it. Concrete floor and electric with one thermostatically controlled fan. The poly is about 18 years old and still going strong, no leaks yet. This time of year I use an electric radiator type heater for the cold nights. Yesterday, it was up to 90 degrees with the sun shining down on it, the fan kicked on periodically.

I'll get some pics of the house itself. It's only 12X14, but serves its purpose.

The key is a good quality skin. Don't skimp on the cover. You can frame it with anything.

I have a 30 foot and a hundred footer laying around from when we market gardened, but never put up. I'm thinking of putting up the 100' over some of the beds permanently for year round greens. Rocket mass heaters for heat... oh yeah. I'm loaded with good intentions. :

 

OK, this pic is of the onions started on 2/21. They look OK.

This pic is of the rest of the seed, started 10 days later, under the proper moon sign. They are much stronger and larger in diameter than the first round, and yet the are a week and a half after, under all the same conditions, except the moon. Do you think maybe there is something to planting by the moon? I do.

 

Lettuce is about ready to be plugged in the bed in about another week or so. Looking real nice.