Heather here.
We have plants that want to go in the ground but no unfrozen ground to place them in! It is snowing, then raining, then freezing, then snowing, then raining, and when we get a dry day it proceeds to rain all night, or all the next day. Even on days when it is sunny, with these temperatures in the 30s and 20s, the soil isn’t going to be very warm anyways, and I don’t really want to be outside!
Supposedly we will get three days of clear sun starting Thursday…maybe it will dry out enough to break some ground, and not just leave plants sitting around in cold soil with nothing better to do.
We had our first class and handed out soil amendments and some plants for people who had a covered space to keep them. A few participants had broken ground on their own quite early, and the plants are with them now, to do what they will in this freeze/unfreeze…their poor little roots! We have row cover available, and I have given it out to some folks. We double seeded our early-spring crops so I have another succession in the greenhouse to replace any early ones that were fried. Trouble is, by this point, the second flush is ready to go! I think they will be okay for another week…don’t seem to be getting too root-bound and I fed again with fish emulsion to make up for their lack of soil.
Some of the pansies we planted were flowering so we’ve been potting them on from their community flat, and will do that with some more herbs and flowers tomorrow. This second stand of brassicas is so healthy and such strong stems..and we have enough onions to give each gardener a community flat of onions…YES. That is about 200 onion plants.
Presented our work at the Appalachian Studies Association this weekend in Boone, NC at Appalachian State University. Hopefully more folks will connect with Grow Appalachia, while also learning more about how one organizes a program like this.
Leave A Comment