10:25 – It was 35.4F (2C) when I took Colin out around 0715 this morning, bright and sunny. It’s already warmed up to 53.5F (12C).
We spent a lot of time yesterday doing detailed garden planning. Not just what we’re going to plant, but how much of each and where exactly we’re going to plant it. Our last frost date, depending on who one listens to, is around mid-May, six weeks from now.
We’re going to start some plants indoors in small container arrays. When those are ready for transplanting, some will go into the garden and others will go into larger pots that will live out on the deck.
We made a quick run into town yesterday to Farmer’s Hardware. Barbara wanted to pick up some seeds we didn’t have. They carry Burpee seeds, all presumably hybrid, but that doesn’t matter for what we’re doing this season. She got two kinds of lettuce, some jalapeno peppers, and some yellow squash. We also picked up some bio-degradable planting containers, including a 4×9 array and ten 1×5 arrays. We’ll use those for starting vegetables and herbs, respectively, filling them with the starter mix we made up in a 5-gallon bucket yesterday, which is equal volumes of peat moss and composted cow manure.
They’ll sit on a table along the French windows next to the door out to the deck, where they’ll stay warm and get plenty of light. If that works well this season, next season we’ll probably put up floor-to-ceiling shelves along that window to let us get a lot more plants started in minimal space.
On our way home from Farmer’s, we stopped at Scott’s. They’re in the process of moving to a new cluster of buildings they’ve built a mile or so north of us on the road into town. They’re not officially open yet, but we stopped by to see what they were doing. Interestingly, they have a seed rack that contains exclusively heirloom/open-pollinated seeds.
They also have several hundred bags of animal feed piled in the middle of their main display area. I tried to convince Barbara that we should pick up some bags of chicken feed and then get some chickens. Colin desperately needs something to herd, and I figured free-range chickens would make a good flock for him. Barbara says no way. She’s not going to keep chickens. I suggested rabbits as an alternative, but she refused again.
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