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!
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