Monday, June 2, 2014

May Flowers or Out in the greenhouse part 2

To get a jump on the growing season, some plants can be started indoors.  After all the danger of frost and cold temps finally pass, the mature seedlings can then be transferred to their garden beds outside.
When walking about the garden center of the local big box store, one will see all sorts of stuff available to help the gardener grow seeds.  Special soils, additives, trays, heat mats, lights, gages, and probes fill aisle after aisle leaving the noice or professional wondering what she gotten herself into.  It doesn't have to be complicated.  Let's get back to keeping it simple.


I love seed catalogs.  They always come when the weather is cold and nasty reminding us that it won't be winter forever.  The hardest part is staying rational/reasonable in planning the new year's garden plot.
With the greenhouse, we were able to get our cucumbers, watermelons, and gourds an early start.  Each of these plants like warm soil to germinate.  When temps were hovering around 40F outside, the greenhouse was a lovely 70F.  As an experiment, we decided not to heat the house but rather let the sun shine in.  Fortunately this year, that was enough to make the little seedlings happy.
Now that the weather is becoming steadily warmer, the little plants are being transferred out to the garden bed..

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