Yvonne Scott, here in Wolfe County:
Guess we still need our raincoats and wellies but happily the storms waited until after our workshop last night at the Wolfe County Extension. Our Grow Appalachia folks are chomping at the bit to plant something, anything, and it’s hard to fight it with temps around 70 degrees and sunshine most of the week. So we were delighted to have Sarah Fannin, Morgan County Extension Agent and operator of Fannin’s Vegetable Farm in West Liberty, KY, bring her experience in high tunnel and greenhouse production to the Extension office and get folks excited about starting seeds and growing their own transplants. Sarah’s presentation covered all the basics from creating your own soil media, to proper watering, the optimum growing temperatures and light for germination, plus hardening off, something that was new to some of our families. With the addition of the greenhouse at our Extension office, we’re looking forward to having some of our GA families join us in growing some summer crops as well as getting a head start on fall crops by using the ample space we have.
We have a wide variety of abilities and experience in our families but one thing they all seemed to have in equal amounts: excitement for playing in the dirt! Thanks, Sarah, for a great presentation and sharing your baby tomatoes and peppers with our group. Here’s to lots more seed starting in our future.
Sounds like a great session Yvonne. What is the soil starting medium that Sarah recommends?
Pretty standard one-third each of sterilized soil, peat moss, perlite if you’re mixing it yourself. She brought a bag of Promix a professional potting mix with beneficial microbes. I’m going to use the rest of it for starting some annuals in the greenhouse.