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| Five rows 25-ft. long each sowed with 'Bloomsdale Long Standing' spinach seed |
It's that time of year again - spinach! Cold-weather seeds can be planted as soon as ground can be worked. Grab a handful of soil and squeeze it together: if it crumbles apart when you let go, it's ready to cultivate. Here's a hint: garden loam which has plenty of organic humus will be ready to work sooner than unconditioned soil. This is our second season growing in this bed - last year we grew red clover and sweet corn here; we acidified it with iron sulfate and spread a load of composted manure over before tilling. The tiller cut through it like butter - wow, what a difference from last year! 800 seeds have been sown down five, 25-foot rows and watered, so we're hoping to see a great harvest in April.
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| Seedling heat mat warming a cell pack sown with peppers. |
Sterilized seed-starting mix greatly improves the viability of seeds started indoors. Most seed-starting mix is not sterile, but it can be sterilized in a big roasting pot placed in the oven and baked at 300 degrees F for about an hour. We did this before starting our sweet bell peppers indoors; we use heat mats underneath to create an ideal germinating temperature, and we cover with plastic to keep humidity high until they sprout. Seeds germinate in half the expected time using this method.
It wouldn't be too early to plant carrot seed and onion sets outdoors. This garlic has obviously enjoyed a mild winter and is a little more than half-way through its growing cycle.
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| White hardneck garlic plants. |
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