Tuesday
Apr222008
State of the Estate - April
Tuesday, April 22, 2008 at 8:20PM
As some recent posts have shown - the weather here is starting to feel more like summer than early spring. It's only April 22nd and all the trees are budded out ahead of schedule with this warm spell. The next 10 days forward - according to the forecasters (my mother-in-law calls them weather terrorists) - is supposed to be a bit more temperate - but still very seasonable.
Anyhow - tonight I concluded this springs run with the plow - the garden plot is done, the field is done and a strip in the growing berry patch is done for the raspberry canes. (let's see if I am really done with the plow - I did grease it though)
That leaves a few weeks of sitting and then out comes the disk and we should be ready for planting at the end of May!
In the shorter term - I'll be preparing some areas sooner than that - as in the next several days for the onions, lettuce, spinach, carrots, broccoli and cauliflower... ohh - and potatoes - lots of Golden 'taters!
As for the seedlings I started a while back - they are happy in the cold frame - living days and nights outside - growing more every day.
I'm a little hesitant to go headlong into this as I experienced my first significant springtime planting fatality this year. About 3/4 of my planted peas rotted in the ground. What's interesting for all your "organinc" folks out there - almost every single one of my Burpee Super Sugar Snap peas kicked the bucket from moist soil and cool temps after planting... the 1/4 that lived were because I decided to extend the row and used some 2 year old Harris Seed Super Sugar Snaps - treated with FLUDIOXONIL and MEFENOXAM... and guess what - 2 year old seed is now the only above ground peas I can claim! I still contend that organic is "nice" - but not overly realistic 100% of the time. We certainly do our best to avoid chemicals where we can - but there are advances in agriculture that simply "make sense". Seeds being one of them.
Anyhow - tonight I concluded this springs run with the plow - the garden plot is done, the field is done and a strip in the growing berry patch is done for the raspberry canes. (let's see if I am really done with the plow - I did grease it though)
That leaves a few weeks of sitting and then out comes the disk and we should be ready for planting at the end of May!
In the shorter term - I'll be preparing some areas sooner than that - as in the next several days for the onions, lettuce, spinach, carrots, broccoli and cauliflower... ohh - and potatoes - lots of Golden 'taters!
As for the seedlings I started a while back - they are happy in the cold frame - living days and nights outside - growing more every day.
I'm a little hesitant to go headlong into this as I experienced my first significant springtime planting fatality this year. About 3/4 of my planted peas rotted in the ground. What's interesting for all your "organinc" folks out there - almost every single one of my Burpee Super Sugar Snap peas kicked the bucket from moist soil and cool temps after planting... the 1/4 that lived were because I decided to extend the row and used some 2 year old Harris Seed Super Sugar Snaps - treated with FLUDIOXONIL and MEFENOXAM... and guess what - 2 year old seed is now the only above ground peas I can claim! I still contend that organic is "nice" - but not overly realistic 100% of the time. We certainly do our best to avoid chemicals where we can - but there are advances in agriculture that simply "make sense". Seeds being one of them.
Reader Comments