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Clicking through one of our banner ads or some of our text links and making a purchase will produce a small commission for us from the sale. The Old Guy's Garden Record March is a month of anticipation for the gardener. Some days are springlike and others carry the full blast of a cold winter rain, sleet, or snow to bring one back to reality. With our outdoor thermometer near 55o yesterday, I threw caution to the wind and began moving some of our hardier transplants from under the plant lights in the basement to our cold frame. Since I'm getting these plants outside really early, I'll have to be especially watchful of nighttime temperatures and be ready to bring the tender plants inside for the night when freezing weather is predicted. One of our flats of onions had become a bit leggy under the plant lights. So before moving it to the cold frame, I gave the onions a quick "haircut" to about two inches in height. The onions will regrow, stronger than ever. Two flats of onion plants and a full tray of assorted brassicas (cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, & kohlrabi) went outside for their first sunshine. Getting the plants outside allows them to harden off a bit and frees up valuable space under my plant lights. Hardening off transplants is necessary "so that seedlings become accustomed to strong sunlight, cool nights and less-frequent watering." I lowered the cold frame immediately after putting the plants in it, leaving only a four inch air space open. The 2x4 prop will come out before sunset, allowing the cold frame to fit snugly against the ground to retain heat overnight. I'll gradually leave the cold frame open longer and longer on warm days. Some rough plans for building such a cold frame are available in the feature, A Simple Cold Frame.
I divided the row into thirds, planting my favorite, Encore, another good variety, Eclipse, and a new one for this year, Maxigolt. I'll add T-posts and trellis a bit later, as we have a nearby tree that either must be topped or totally come down this month. This planting of peas is the earliest we've been able to do for years. I read somewhere that March 1 or later was optimum, and I've actually spread pea seed in the past over frosty soil and poked the seeds in with a finger one at a time! With the current warm stretch of weather we're having, it was a bit easier this year. Freezing nighttime temperatures are in the forecast for late next week, but peas seem to tolerate such stuff pretty well. The main Senior Garden is still pretty much at rest, although it gathered some treated landscape timbers this week. My sweetie had given me a Menard's gift certificate for Christmas. So on Friday, I made the trip to Terre Haute to buy 6" x 6" timbers and 3/8" x 22" rebar to anchor the timbers. This is one of those projects that will never, ever pay for itself, but it's also something I've always wanted to do. I got enough timbers to even get started on enclosing our asparagus patch (shown at the rear of the photo). I finished up the remaining two sides of our large raised bed garden plot this week. I'd added treated landscape timbers to the south and east sides of the plot last April to control erosion. Those timbers went in two deep to correct for the slope of the yard and garden.
I also need to begin adding soil inside the raised bed, as it is several inches below the top of the timbers. To get the drying benefits of a raised bed, the soil level needs to be above the surrounding terrain. While my raised bed is far larger than most at approximately 16' x 24', it's what I wanted. As I age a bit, I may add timbers in the center to cut it to two long 4' x 24' beds or even a "U" shape. I also may just make part of our old garden plot a 3-4' x 16' raised bed. But as long as my health holds out on working a large bed, I like it this way.
Our plantings of petunias, alyssum, and others remain under the plant lights for now. When some of them are ready to harden off outdoors, the onions will move from the cold frame to the back porch to make room for them. And in case you were wondering, I'm still working very hard at being patient on getting my pepper, tomato, and melon transplants started. I'm watching the calendar with a transplanting date of May 1 or so in mind. Working backward, it appears that starting these plants in the next week or two should be appropriate for this region. March 27, 2009 - Another Raised Bed
Since I added a number of bags of composted cow manure last fall to protect the plants through the winter, the boards, now rotting, had to be replaced. There was just too much soil to hold back with a 2x4 and a 2x6. And I really needed to spread out the crown of cow manure that was covering the asparagus plants. Eventually, I'll get a feature story posted about building raised beds. For now, I'll give a quick recap.
From there on, it was just a matter of digging out a level trench for the timbers, adding a second level 4"x6" timber and anchoring them with rebar. I did cheat a bit this time and strung extension cords to the construction area, as my cordless drill's battery packs are only good for about 4 holes through the combined timbers before they die. Materials:
Note that the 8' part about the timbers was variable. Some were 98", and others were a bit longer! You can see from the photo above that the base 6"x6" timbers pretty well disappear into the soil as the ground slopes upward to the left. Since the slope was really pretty gentle, I was able to use 4"x6" timbers for the second level. If you're thinking about building your first raised bed, this one is what I might recommend. It measures around 4'x16', with the interior workspace being about 42". I can reach any area of this bed for weeding, picking, etc., without having to step into the bed. Peas and Brassicas
More Plants The plants under our cold frame and on the back porch seem to change daily. I moved our onions and the remaining brassicas to the porch to make room for some petunias and geraniums that are ready to be hardened off. The back porch will continue to become more congested as more plants are ready to come up from the basement plant light area. I'm quite busy now getting our lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, melons, squash, and a few more flowers seeded. One of the side benefits of working late in the garden is witnessing some very pretty sunsets. The two below are from Monday and Tuesday of this week.
As will happen this time of year, we had a frost this morning. I'd brought the most tender of our transplants inside to protect them. Under our cold frame, it appears a couple of my tomato plants may have gotten nipped a bit. I did worry a bit about the brassicas in the garden, as one cabbage plant looked a bit sad from the kitchen window. But when I finally got outside this morning, it had recovered. I got busy and finished up the feature, Building a Raised Garden Bed. I also snapped the photo below of our raised beds and the original garden plot.
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