April 20 - Growing Things in a Pine Forest

My hoop houses in the new garden space.  These are an inexpensive, quick way to create a greenhouse effect.

For about $100, I have 240 square feet of growing space.  

Today dawned cloudy and cold again.   It was 28 at 7am this morning, with mostly cloudy skies, so it seemed really cold out.  I think the high today reached about 56, but it never really felt like it. The clouds stayed around all day, and even a few spits of snow here and there.  This time of year the weather is unsettled.  

All these cold temps, wind, and unpredictable weather patterns make trying to grow anything up here a real challenge. Sometimes, I wonder if it is worth all the effort... but then, whatever DOES grow in the garden really brings a sense of accomplishment along with the joy of eating fresh wholesome veggies.

I just started the garden last  year, and even my original small planting area required herculean effort to create
any kind of growing environment.   I chose a slope on the south side of the house, which got the most sun, and radiant warmth from the foundation.

 The original garden area. It slopes down maybe 10 feet from the patio area, so it required me to terrace the hillside. And THAT required me hauling tons of rock from the forest or whevever I could find it, by hand, one rock at a time.   It was quite alot of work. And I broke many fingernails. :-)

Nothing much growing yet, this year. That's the garlic right in front, planted last fall, and I can't wait to harvest this summer!

These are the cold frames against the foundation of the house.  With lightbulbs for warmth on really bitter nights, I can get most seedlings off to an early start.  

this is an inexpensive little mini "greenhouse" I got at Home  Depot - a floor model, so it was only $23!  It's just a set of shelves, with a plastic cover and a front zipper to open and vent.  It actually has amazed me with it's ability to retain heat even overnight, though for smaller seedlings, I try not to let them get below about 50 degrees till they are a bit bigger.   It's also a good place to harden off larger transplants.  This time of year, I do alot of hauling these trays of seeds in and out of the house, depending on weather.  If I am not careful and attentive, it can get well over 100 degrees in here really fast.  Sometimes monitoring all these feels like a full time job.

Now this might be a bit hard to see, so let me explain.  One thing we have plenty of in a pine forest is.... PINE NEEDLES!   So I raked up about 5 wheelbarrows full of them (this took approximately 15 min. - they ARE plentiful) and made this makeshift raised planting bed. First I took old burlap feed sacks from the feed store and filled them with compost.  (I didn't get a photo of the compost heap - maybe another time)

I planted potatoes in the bags, and then surrounded them on all sides, all the way to the top, with pine needles.  There is a fence on one side which provides a little extra support.  Using this natural resource allows me to plant the potatoes in the bags, which will make harvesting really easy later this fall. I can just dump out the bag when they are ready. The pine needles do two things. They insulate the roots from these early cold temperatures, and they act as a mulch, retaining moisture.  And they will break down faster like this than lying on the forest floor, creating more hummus and compost for next year. This is an experiment. We will have to see how it turns out.  

 Pretty much everything I do in the garden this time of year is to try to mediate the cold temperatures... mostly the soil temps.  Pretty soon, I will be planting things under those hoop houses, which create an environment approximately 15-20 degrees warmer than outside. Pretty nifty.