Planting and Building

The last two weeks have been consumed with building a tomato room for the greenhouse. The greenhouse was built 5 years ago at the Homer Flex High School, as part of our building trades class. I knew back then that it should have been 16 feet long, but due to building it at school and hauling it 15 miles to our house we decide on 10 feet. This year we thought it would be nice to have some of our tomatoes in the greenhouse, you can never have enough tomatoes, and all we had to do was make more room. Everyday after school I have been planting and tending to the beds for planting, then I try to build a bit to the addition. I usually make a little bit of headway and realize I need to eat dinner around eight or nine o'clock. Remember, this is the land of the midnight sun and it has a way of possessing you late into the evening. Possessed or not, most of the greenhouse work is done on the weekends. I hope to have it done this weekend, since I have a trip outside in two weeks. It will be wiggle fiberglass on the exterior and visqueen for the interior. I have found that this double wall offers much more insulation that just the wiggle fiberglass. During our nights I can get 4-6 degree warmer than the outside temperature in April. With this design and some heat sinks, i.e. water jugs and soil, this amount of temperature gain matters for keeping frost off the young plants for spring planting. The addition will step down to ground level from the original greenhouse, so we hope to get some added heat in the fall. Also, I am plumbing in 4" pipes under the planter boxes and piping into our exhaust fan at the ceiling level for heating the beds in the spring. Once completed I will saw out the west wall and enter the addition. Currently, the existing greenhouse is working hard and packed with all of our seedlings.

Nicky and I are hardening off the zucchinis, cucumbers, broccoli, cabbage, herbs, and lettuce every evening at the house and down in the greenhouse. It is that time of the year when you are stepping over plants and constantly watering. This year I caught as much snow run off from our roofs and stored it in the garage in several 45 gallon containers. Our plants do better with snow melt we have found. When hardening we have to be careful, because of the day breeze that we get on sunny days can ruin small seedlings. The other day I lost a whole planting of broccoli and cabbage. Not worry, I plant in a continuous cycle so that I have back up plants and plants that can be harvested through out the summer.

Today, Nicky and I bought parsley, broccoli romanesco, and a pumpkin (the only experimental vegetable this year) at a local greenhouse and I noticed that many of their seedlings have the same orange, red, and brown color on the cotyledons and first true leaf. Is it a result of the seedling medium, hers looked like mine, or was it too hot or cold at one time. At school we had the same issue and they are bounced right back, especially the Toi Choi and Tatsoi. We had our first greens and radishes this week at the Homer Flex School Garden. I planted many of my seedlings that have this color in the hoop house and under cold frames this past weekend. Transplants can take a week or two to prove themselves. While I wait, I will continue to plant and build the addition. Garden on!

Snow Melts and Cold Frames Are Planted

It has been wet and cold at the 1300’ elevation this past week. We had a couple of good blows with 30 mph gusts, but the loosely tied down hoop house has managed to survive. I was pretty antsy to get it up last weekend in hopes of obtaining some solar gain for melting the snow inside and get a jump on planting some cold tolerant plants. Yet, I really don’t know if it helped with the winds blowing through the many small openings.

Looking at the flowering plants in the yard you really notice the sudden burst of energy. We have crocus poking up along with many others small perennials. It is like they are growing before your eyes. In the vegetable garden I planted under every cold frame, the soil is ice free down to 4-6 inches. The standing cold frame has sprouts of oriental greens from the week before. In the greenhouse, I am starting to see a second burst of energy from many of the seedlings from the greens, cabbages, broccoli, and onions. The onions are the happiest in this environment. Inside, the herbs have strengthened their stems, while the basil planted in March is close to a foot tall with half dollar size leaves. The tomatoes from the Wagon Wheel are small bushes and have many green tomatoes on the vine.

The garden is starting to reveal itself, as the yard has lost most it’s snow, I am able to walk down in knee high shoes with out getting snow in them. I have noticed a lot more moose and rabbit pellets than in years past. The rhubarb is up, mountain ash has burst its buds, and all the berry bushes are swelling. While it rains outside the temperature hovers in the 40’s while the greenhouse is in the high 50’s. This weekend, I planted in two of the beds that have portable cold frames. Spinach, radishes, and corn salad were planted from seed, while leeks were planted as starts. Leeks are hardy and are becoming the plant of the spring as they continue to grow, ever so slowly, through the cold spring temperatures. This is the earliest I have planted them outdoors. I am also transplanting starts from the 4-packs to the three-inch plastic containers. This week I received a 4-block soil blocker for two-inch blocks. This tool makes soil blocks using a start mixture, so you don’t have the need for plastic containers. It is an Elliot Coleman design and I am looking forward to getting away from plastic. Lastly, I covered the beds with wiggle plastic to speed up the soil heating process. Now I will move on to securing the hoop house down since all the snow and ice has melted away.

At school, we just let the plants grow this week. However, we did assess how they were doing. I will include a link to a journal a student wrote on Wednesday in a later post. The temperatures are warmer in town and hoop house is in the high 50’s to lower 60’s. All the plants have rebounded from transplanting and poor temperature management during our short heat spell two weeks ago. Inside the classroom, we continue to plant according to the bio-dynamic calendar. This week we planted fruits: zucchini, cucumbers, and peas. I should mention we did receive a write up in the Homer Tribune and it hit the AP press later in the week, so the story is receiving hits from many lower 48 newspapers and the Fairbanks Daily News Miner. Pretty cool. I am sure the next time we receive sunshine it will be infectious. Garden on!

Cold Frames Exposed and Hoop House is Up

This week the cold frames started to appear beneath the snow. The one in the picture is three foot wide by 18 inches deep and about three feet tall with a 45 degree angled opening that fits an old window from the house. For the last two years this cold frame has produced lettuce and greens in the spring and zucs in the summer. I planted some micro-greens this year. Another spot that has worked well is the southern side of the greenhouse. This 3' x 4' raised bed has produced herbs, onions, greens, and last year attempt at artichokes.

The pig compost from two years ago is also thawing out. This will be used to amend the beds, along with our green manure.

I was able to get the hoop house back in its spot. It is loosely connected, I will tighten it up as the snow melts. I am hoping to get a jump on the inside beds. Time will tell.


Unfortunately, our snow load up here at 1300' is not going allow me to do any intensive gardening this weekend. I don't know what I would do without the school garden in town. It continues to sprout along. All of the root vegetables are up and the we will harvest the first greens next week.