Value-added transplants

A quick trip to a local big-box home supply store required an initial detour through the garden center's display of vegetables and herbs (not the point of the excursion!) It looked like there were more plants than the last time I visited.

I wasn't surprised with the array of hardy kale, cabbage, and other transplants. Even the herb varieties offered up looked OK, although cilantro and arugula transplants are decidedly unsuited to the warm spring weather that's just around the corner here.

But I've got to give the transplant producing company credit for being proactive and imaginative; they had snap pea transplants (!) for sale (also labeled as sweet peas...), onion plants in 6-packs, and a number of other things that I hadn't seen offered before in previous seasons. Now snow peas are very easy to sow directly, and best grown that way, but geez, what a clever idea to try to get folks to buy a 6-pack for more than the price of a packet of seeds? They were attractive, too; they might even grow well if very gently and quickly transplanted.

Less reasonable were the bean plants (it's still a month until our last frost date). They're not likely to be successful if planted out now, and neither will the cucumber and squash plants also on offer. The Mr. Stripey tomatoes (and all the regular Early Girl sorts) looked nice enough now, having recently been delivered from warm greenhouses, but wouldn't be happy in the currently cold, wet soil, not to mention air temperatures below 50° F. This is simply value-added marketing at work.

I felt like nabbing Mr. Stripey and bringing him home to put on the heating mat under grow lights for the next month. Oh, dear.

I'm glad that the main producers are providing a greater variety of transplants, and maybe encouraging beginning gardeners, but do wish that plants were provided at the right time to plant! To their credit, the info on their (the producers) website is decent.

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Time to plant the first peas

It was a perfect late winter day here, temperatures in the upper 60's (°F), sunny and warm. It felt more like spring. The winter honeysuckle was covered in honey bees foraging for nectar.

After a weekend away largely spent on indoor house activities (yuck), it was nice to return home and spend an hour or so turning over the remaining beds, sowing a first series of snap peas (Sugar Sprint) and garden peas (Wando and Maestro), a round of arugula, and a flat of mixed lettuce, to go in the cold frame when the weather turns cold again.

I replanted some favas (broad beans), too, mainly as an experiment, since I think there may not be time for a crop to mature before it gets too hot. My fall planting of favas had a few blackened survivors still with healthy-looking roots, but it was really way too cold this winter for most normally winter hardy greens. Even collards show signs of frost damage.

This week looks like it will be mild; I'm going to continue to put in onion sets and sow more early greens.

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Ready for winter (light)

I'm so glad that we're finally beginning to think about winter vegetable gardening here in the Southern U.S. I just listened to a podcast this morning from BBC Gardens Illustrated, where Sarah Raven talked about how in the U.K., folks are growing more crops through the winter.

Uh, we get a LOT more light in the winter that British gardeners do -- why not take advantage of it? I put together a new cold frame today (it's a good thing I don't earn my living as a carpenter), but I'm thinking about coaxing some of the more tender winter greens through colder times.

I'm delighted that my English (garden) peas are flowering profusely now. I may actually be able to harvest some English peas this fall (I've already harvested about 10 peas -- whoopee!)

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