More Spring Planting

Last year I salvaged some old windows from my Grandma's neighbor who was having his replaced.  I wanted to use them to make a "cold frame/hot bed" to start my seeds.  Here's how I did it.  A cold frame just uses sunlight to create heat to make a warm environment for starting seeds.  If you add an additional heat source it becomes a "hot bed."  In a cold frame the temperature will fall at night or if the sun is not out which is not ideal for starting some seeds that require higher germination temperatures (such as a lot of flowers).  Manure is often used as a heat source in a hot bed because as it decomposes it generates heat.  So, I thought I would give it a try.  Here is the pit I dug about 18 inches deep.  Laying next to the pit is the window frame I am using.

Then I filled the trench with chicken manure and covered it with some straw.  The chickens are checking it out!  Dad and Greg helped me add sides to the window frame to make it into an angled box.  The front is 12 inches high and the back is 24 inches high.  It slopes to the South to take the most advantage of the sunlight.

This is the whole frame after completion.  The windows are open for ventilation since this was a warm sunny day.  I have 15 flats of Kale in it right now.  I'm not sure that my chicken manure is really working to produce any heat in my frame because once the sun goes down the temperature is falling.  Horse manure probably would have done a better job.  Since I'm using this to start Kale plants right now it's not a big deal though because kale doesn't require a high temperature to germinate.  I have already seen a few sprouts after just a couple of days.  If I want to start flowers I may have stick a heat lamp in here on really cold nights.

Here's what it looks like when it's closed up.  I have a couple more window frames that I can use as well, but I don't know if that is going to happen this season.

My Granny always said to plant peas on St. Patrick's Day.  That never happens for me; I'm never ready that soon.  Quite frankly, though, I think the soil is usually still a little too cold and wet on that date anyway.  Mine were planted on April 3rd.  Kelley came down to help and we were finished pretty quickly.  This is me pushing my Earthway Seeder which drops the seeds in the ground and covers them for you.  It is super handy because it really speeds things up but can be very frustrating as well.  It has "plates" for different seeds, but if the seeds aren't exactly the right size it will put down too much or not enough seeds.  I used it to plant my row of shell peas.  The snap pea seeds were too small and the snow pea seeds were too large so Kelley and I planted those by hand.

This is Kelley planting peas (the cat came to help as well.)

The Friday before we planted peas I was able to get some ground tilled up and lay down the plastic for my onions.  A couple of years ago I stopped using onion sets and switched to using onion plants and putting them in black plastic.  This works so much better for me--I won't go back!  So, after we finished planting peas Kelley went home and brought back her six year old, Jud.  He is hardest working little boy I know!  At age two, he could help us pick green beans in a hot August field for two hours and not complain one bit.  The two of them helped me plant half a row of onions in about an hour that day (each row is 320 feet long.)

I planted the rest of the onions over the next couple of days.  I planted five varieties:  Yellow Spanish (large yellow), Superstar (large white), Ailsa Craig (large yellow), Red Zepplin (large red), and Cippollini (medium flat yellow).  I planted about 7,000 onions.  Please don't be impressed with this number; my best farmer friend Becky just planted like 22,000!!  I have about 2,000 plants leftover--they were all the scrawny little plants--I'm going to plant them closely spaced straight in the dirt to pull out as green onions. 

So, I had about 1/4 of a row left to plant and I called Kelley to tell her she had better bring Jud back down to help finish it if he wanted to help me plant any more onions (he had been begging to come back and help.)  She showed up with a whole crew of kids!  Aren't they cute?!

I have to admit, I was a little afraid when I saw them all--I could see things being trampled, etc.  But they were sooo great.  They all listened to my directions and did exactly as they were told and worked quickly and carefully.  We had that little section done so fast!  I joke about "child labor," but really, what a great experience for these kids.

Kelley is handing out yellow onions to Jud and J.D.

Kelley's sister Sarah is handing out red onions to Nate, Evie, and Maura.  Don't worry, I wasn't just taking pictures while they worked; I was making the holes in front of them.

And don't worry, I let the kids have some fun when they were finished working!  The slide was a huge hit as always.

Wax paper makes you fly!

Also, this past week, I got my tomatoes started in the greenhouse.  Twenty five flats in all.  The peppers and eggplant were up and doing well.  Here's Eli McDonald helping me fill my flats with dirt. (The pictures turned out foggy because it was so humid in the greenhouse.)

Fill the dump truck, back it up, then unload it!  So cute!

My seed potatoes finally arrived today from Maine!  I'm going to have to wait for the ground to dry out now though after all this rain.  They are predicting sunshine for the next couple of days so let's hope I can get them in before the next round of rain hits.