Early Spring 2010     Grower’s Note

With the spring Equinox just around the corner on March 20th, the longer day lengths are more than welcomed by this winter daylight deprived grower.  Our greenhouses are being prepared for our second round of seeding for transplants and plugs.  Some Polyethylene coverings on our high tunnels need to be replaced from the damage of the wind storms of last month. 

We’re on schedule for our plantings of bulb onions, baby Bok Choy and mixed lettuces.  We have many herb cuttings ‘cooking’ on our heating tables.  We don’t really cook the seed & plug trays, but we do use electric heating coils on tables to provide more efficient warming of our germinating plants.  With the warmer temperatures on these heating tables, we can keep the immediate root zones on our cuttings and seedings at an optimum 65+ degree F without having to heat the entire greenhouse.  Much like using an electric blanket on your bed, you can keep nice and toasty at night while the rest of your room and house remain at 57oF through out the evening hours.  Lucky Plants don’t even have to freeze their buns when they get up in the middle of the night and go into the bathroom for ‘a drink of water’.

We’re looking for a dry stretch of weather before we can get our first planting of spring sugar snap peas seeded outdoors.  Hopefully that will happen before the end of the month.

Wishing you a Sunny day,

Fred