Posts Tagged ‘calendar’

26 Mar

Hippie Impulsively Laughs in the Face of Nature

Posted by rakhi in Gardening Timetable, Inspiration, Local Gardening Information, Zone 4 Madness. Tagged: , , , , .

Rogue lettuce from last years plantings. If things go according to plan, it will be part of my salad in 2-3 weeks.

I did some things that I probably shouldn’t have done this weekend. Things I can’t take back, and that I hope I can be forgiven for. Like many other gardeners, I just couldn’t help myself. The sun was bright, the temperatures were high, and all the stars seemed to align this weekend. And so, my dear readers, I gardened. I gardened like it was going out of style. I gardened like my life depended on it. Yes, I gardened like a complete buffoon. I laughed in the face of nature while sowing every early vegetable I could think of and re-arranging my perennial edible bed like I owned the place.

I moved my asparagus to the back of the bed. A bad decision last year left me with tall, burly asparagus shading out my teeny strawberries. We can't have that.

I hang my head in shame, asking for forgiveness from Zone 4 and hoping she will be merciful this year. But I know that I sowed this bed and now I have to plant in it.

FYI, the soil temperature in St. Paul this past week (March 19-18; last week’s data is not up yet) averaged 56 degrees. Last year at this time it was a full 24 degrees lower. Yep. I wouldn’t lie to you about something this serious.

18 Apr

Local Soil Temperature

Posted by rakhi in Gardening, Local Gardening Information, Planning. Tagged: , , , .

If you’re like me and stressing out about planting at exactly the right time, too impatient to wait until next week to start planting, too anxious to  plant right. now., and too lazy to stick a thermometer in the ground and do math, go to the Soil Temperature and Pan Evaporation Tables by the Minnesota Climatology Working Group.  Other states should have similar data available through an extension office.  Every week they post the new soil temperature average for the past week for a variety of areas.

This table from the UMN Extension Service shows optimum germination temperatures for some veggies. I pulled out the temperatures leading to the shortest germination times for my own interest:

Asparagus 77
Lima Bean 77-86
Snap Bean 86-95
Beet 77-95
Cabbage 86
Carrot 86
Cauliflower 68
Celery 68
Sweet Corn 95
Cucumber 86-95
Eggplant 86
Lettuce 77
Muskmelon 86
Okra 95
Onion 77-86
Parsley 86
Parsnip 68
Pea 77-86
Pepper 77-86
Radish 86
Spinach 77
Tomato 77-86
Turnip 77-95
Watermelon 95

6 Apr

Planting Calendar

Posted by rakhi in Planning. Tagged: , .

My Crocuses are up! The neighborhood rascals seems to be munching on them...suggestions?

I try not to re-invent the wheel, for the record.  I know that in order to maximize the amount of food I get from my front lawn I’m going to have to have a pretty scheduled calendar to remember when to plant new seeds, replace fading plants, and so on.  But, frankly, it is a bit overwhelming to make my own.  So, imagine my relief when I discovered that Dundee Nursery made a planting schedule schedule JUST for me!  This is especially nice because some of the other ones I found online aren’t specific to our (practically Arctic) growing zone. Also, because I’m impatient, I want to plant everything. now.  So I found this UMN Extension article that includes a chart of the most cold-hardy vegetables (thanks, UMN Extension).  While the article is about late-summer to fall planting, this will be useful to me for knowing what I can start right away, too.

Sigh.  I would like to start everything right. now.

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