This is a post from last April as we gave up waiting for Old Man Winter to leave us alone. I am hoping to get some therapeutic alone time in the dirt this weekend and set up some hoops to get a jump on this season – a whole month earlier than last year!! If all goes as planned, I hope to get some spinach, asian greens, beets, onions, radish and turnip in the ground under tunnels and some snow peas under frost blankets. I can’t wait to get my hands dirty!!
It snowed again today. No accumulation, but big, wet, yucky flakes came down. Again. Mother Nature and I are having a time out. A pause. I am trying to be the bigger person and not throw a full on hissy fit – it is pretty tough, but so far I am in for the win. This past weekend was glorious! A large amount of snow had melted and by Sunday evening I had 4 raised beds thawed and moist and the main veggie bed almost visible. There was hope! I even started hardening off the early veggie babies and the perennial seedlings on the porch. Apparently Mother Nature put her big old arctic mukluk wearing foot down. But I am no schmuck – I got prepared. That does’t mean I am happy about it.
I am now a full 3 weeks behind where I was 2 years ago, not…
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I’ve been thinking of you! Spring will reach you in no time. Hang in there!
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Right back at you!
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I love the idea of helping to warm up the soil a little earlier than Mother Nature might allow! What is the vapor barrier? If I go to a hardware store is that something they might sell? Any other names it might go by? I just seeded mizuna and next will seed some Spring raab! Of course, snow is in our forecast for tomorrow, but winter can’t go on forever! Good luck planting early!!
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Hi! You can buy heavy duty greenhouse plastic but I am a bit cheap. The plastic is 6mm vapour barrier – it is usually in the flooring section at hardware stores (they put it down against the concrete before they lay hardwood or laminate). I have also used medium to heavy duty painters drop cloths in the past, but they were more expensive per square foot and not as easy to use as the covenant roll!! As fate would have it, it snowed the day after I got my hoops up and the snow peas planted under a frost blanket but all was happy under the plastic – it hit about 16 degrees celsius under there yesterday and the air temp was only 3! Good luck! I love mizuna….
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We just got an inch or two of snow overnight, but haven’t put anything outside yet. All seedlings well protected in greenhouse. This week though, I’m going for the vapor barrier to help warm and speed things up! Thanks for the info and enjoy the weekend!
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We went down to -10 degrees celsius for 3 days and had 2 unexpected snow dumps. it has all melted and tonight I went out to secure the tunnels after some wind loosened them up a bit and there are hundreds of baby seedlings that still germinated under them despite the cold! I don’t even have any heat or heat sinks for the night at all…it works well!!
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