My growing season has begun. I am in zone 5, Pennsylvania. Officially, May 30th is our frost-free planting day. Of course mother nature ignores the boundaries and sends us an early June frost, but these are few and far between.
I have about 120 safe growing days in my area but there are easy enough ways to lengthen those days with hoop houses, make shift covers, cold frames, greenhouses, etc. I do use them now and again.
This year I have used a heated mat for germinating seed to get my season off to an early start. Right now I have several Calabrese broccoli seedlings and the curly blue kale. A few varieties of onion are planted but only a few have sprouted. It took only 5 days for the broccoli and kale to germinate! I'm not sure what to think about this. I hope this doesn't harm the health of the plants. I'll have to keep notes in the garden book on their growth.
My next step (which has to be today) is to set up my lights. I will have to transplant the seedlings into larger containers. They are also in a seed starting medium. I've purchased a bag of worm castings to add to my transplants for this phase and compost. They should be off to a good start and handle the transplant into the garden just fine.
Once the soil is able to be worked I'll add the mushroom manure and Azomite. Azomite is new to me. It is a rock dust which boasts 67 trace minerals to get the soil up to speed for a good growing season. As the plants quick being productive I will remove them to the compost pile and put seedlings in their place which I will have sown a few weeks prior in the greenhouse.
I have about 120 safe growing days in my area but there are easy enough ways to lengthen those days with hoop houses, make shift covers, cold frames, greenhouses, etc. I do use them now and again.
This year I have used a heated mat for germinating seed to get my season off to an early start. Right now I have several Calabrese broccoli seedlings and the curly blue kale. A few varieties of onion are planted but only a few have sprouted. It took only 5 days for the broccoli and kale to germinate! I'm not sure what to think about this. I hope this doesn't harm the health of the plants. I'll have to keep notes in the garden book on their growth.
My next step (which has to be today) is to set up my lights. I will have to transplant the seedlings into larger containers. They are also in a seed starting medium. I've purchased a bag of worm castings to add to my transplants for this phase and compost. They should be off to a good start and handle the transplant into the garden just fine.
Once the soil is able to be worked I'll add the mushroom manure and Azomite. Azomite is new to me. It is a rock dust which boasts 67 trace minerals to get the soil up to speed for a good growing season. As the plants quick being productive I will remove them to the compost pile and put seedlings in their place which I will have sown a few weeks prior in the greenhouse.
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