How does your veggie garden grow? (2012)

Still early in the season here in the Ohio Valley, but thought I'd give this thread a go.

We are still 8 or 9 weeks away from our average last frost.

Planted a row of spinach last week to supplement the crop that made it through the winter. If the weather looks promising, I try to get a few more cool season greens in the ground by mid-month.

I grow many of my plants from seed and never have been overly impressed with my results. They take forever to germinate despite aggressive lighting. I think the lack of bottom heat on the soil may contribute to these poor results. So, rather than speeding big bucks on a mat made expressly for this purpose, I think I'll try using inexpensive non-LED rope lights. Maybe I'd better check my fire insurance policy first.

So, how does your garden grow.

Growing only in my dreams so far. Although we have had an extremely mild winter we have been known to have blizzards in May so only the heartiest cold germinating things go in at the end of march: snap peas, chard, escarole, lettuces.
Re the germination problem I've used an ordinary heating pad for small flats. We have radiant heated stone floors on the first level so the hot spots on the floor comes in handy. Nevertheless, I've not mastered plants from seeds other than sprouts for winter salads. The warming drawer and the cabinet next to the dishwasher works great for these.

I have sugar snap and snow peas under row cover tunnels that were started indoors two weeks ago and went in the ground today; about 200 onion sets and garlic are growing nicely; cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and swiss chard were set out two weeks ago and are also under row cover (but this neverending wind keeps trying to blow the fabric to Kansas). Also have collards, beets, carrots, radishes, lettuces and turnips up that were direct-seeded a while back.

[Robin Garr]

We've been harvesting occasionally from some spinach Mary planted in the autumn that has wintered over. It's a bit leathery for eating raw or gently wilted, but is just fine chopped or in pesto, with great flavor. She planted some kale from seed indoors a couple of weeks ago and recently transplanted it outside. It looks promising, and should withstand any late-winter/early-spring frosts.

Jonquils are blooming, crocuses and snowdrops are about over, and forsythia around the neighborhood are starting to pop. Perhaps the most bizarre is that some tree buds were starting to show around the end of February, which would be far the earliest EVER here. I can't help but wonder if Friday's monster storms could be related to the same climate situation that brought us the mild winter ... but I hope not. <shudder>

We have five rows of four planted in the kitchen; a green and a yellow zucchini, a pepper, an eggplant, and a cuke.

In the KITCHEN? Wadja do, dig up the floor?
I do hope you plan to transplant! Around here, a zucchini vine can easily eat up 40 square feet!

John

Guess all y'all don't want to hear that we're already getting strawberries at the farmers' markets. My eggplant and chile and herbs (except basil) all seem to have wintered over. My roses are blooming. There are figs on the tree.

Picking up tomato plants tomorrow.

My herbs have restarted - except basil, of course. And I put some Italian parsley and some cilantro in last week. I've also put perennial flowers in the front yard. My roses have just leafed out and the leaves are turning green this week.
No basil for a few weeks, though. We can expect light frost some mornings for another month or so, so I haven't uncovered the citrus, either.

John

I grow many of my plants from seed and never have been overly impressed with my results. They take forever to germinate despite aggressive lighting. I think the lack of bottom heat on the soil may contribute to these poor results. So, rather than speeding big bucks on a mat made expressly for this purpose, I think I'll try using inexpensive non-LED rope lights. Maybe I'd better check my fire insurance policy first.

UPDATE:
The non-LED rope lights worked great. Seeds are germinating in about 1/2 the time stated on the seed packets. Pretty simple to do. Take a pan (I used a 1.5' x 2' plastic pan), line it with some plastic, add maybe an inch of sand (I used CLEAN cat litter), spread the rope lights as evenly as you can (no need to be anal about it) and then cover the rope lights with perhaps 1/4-1/2 in. of sand/litter.
Tomatoes germinated in 3-4 days and the first of the peppers started popping up today.

Putting seed flats in a black plastic trash bag and placed on top of the fridge or freezer is a great way to get bottom heat for germination. Just be sure to take the flats out of the plastic as soon as seeds sprout.

My own garden update:
Yukon Gold and Kennebec potatoes are finally starting to pop out from under the straw mulch. Onions and garlic are doing well, and I should be eating green onions in a couple of weeks.Lettuces are growing like weeds, and I *have* to do some thinning in that bed soon.
Cole crops are all doing great since I put row covers on them, keeping the guineas from munching the leaves. Peas are about six inches high, and looking fine.

[Jenise]

Very clever, bill. Wish I had a cat-proof project room I could do stuff like that in--I'm stuck with letting the nurseries do that stuff for me.

Robert, sounds like a farm you've got going there--but that was the whole point of moving, wasn't it. Sounds idyllic. Will you be planting fruit trees this spring?

[Jenise]

Okay, I looked outside this morning and realized I have three inches of chives up now, and the tarragon's up, too. Spring WILL come.