First Seeding Outside

Saturday, 2013-03-30

First Seeding Outside

We noticed the other day that the low tunnel in F2C (beds 5/6) was totally overrun with chickweed and the spinach was bolting.

We had a nice warm sunny day today, so Pop and Norman cleared it all out. The chickweed was starting to flower, but fortunately I think we caught it in time; they didn't see any that had set seed. Then they spread a bit of fish meal and tilled it in. I went ahead and planted those two beds to lettuce and we covered it all up and sprinkled it for a half-hour or so.

I love what the low tunnels do for the soil in the spring. Outside we had three or four inches of mud on top of an inch or two of ice. Inside was just beautiful, maybe slightly wetter than the ideal, but not wet enough to clog the tiller at all. We opened it up early on in the morning, maybe 8:30 or 9:00, so the sun hadn't had much time to warm it up, and it was still 53°F.

One week later: it has sprouted