Treat soil in early spring to avoid fungus later in the season.
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Cool Season Crops/Soil Question
Comments (5)My thoughts often turn to available Nitrate in the cool soil when planting those first crops including the ones you are thinking of. Broccoli, and cabbage benefit greatly from having plenty of it around to use and can actually sit there doing nothing if none is available; worse yet, they can be induced to bolt long before you can even see the change in the plants. Basically the plants says to itself, "AHHH, I'm starving, guess I'll just start to reproduce". the result is a scrawny plant with a scrawny head later in the season. In contrast, plenty of available nitrate leads to a big framed plant that waits to go into reproductive mode, that big plant can produce a big head. As far as how one ensures an ample supply of nitrate in the soil while gardening organically early in the season, I'll defer to others. Oh, one thing that will get the soil organisms going early in cold soils so they can begin creating nitrate form the organic sources is to warm the soil....See MoreWet soil in Spring & mulch
Comments (4)Thanks Glib, good reminders about what is essentially rotational mulching based on planting warm vs cool season crops. I've never gotten myself into a time crunch with the warm season stuff like tomatoes, peppers and corn, it's usually the cool stuff like lettuce, brocc., cabb. and spuds that can be problematic. I've been thinking about this topic lately because the weather keeps dropping snow and staying cold, unusual for here this time of year; in addition, my transplant seedlings are chugging along like gang busters and have had precious few days warm enough to put out in sun light, not good. OBTW, my 2' of topsoil drains very well, it's that extremely clayey subsoil that causes water to perch in the sub soil that's a problem. One solution to the problem would be to plant alfalfa and leave it in for several years to get lots of big roots to penetrate the sub soil and then die leaving channels for water to penetrate. Would that I were at a starting point in life :) For now I'll be thrilled that the drought is over in my top soil, the entire profile is wet with the best moisture there is! Every year brings new challenges. Kimm: sand soils sure have their advantages. When I worked in FL on those sand lands it could rain 6" in a half hour and youu could go right back out and work without standing in a puddle, there wasn't squat for O.M. in those soils, believe me, just sand. Some of the commercial fields were irrigated by creating a perched water table that would rise up into the root zones of the crop. Interesting stuff to be a part off and see work. Compaction was not an issue. "Putrid odor"? What? I wouldn't characterize that odor as putrid, different, unique, distinct, yes. A hog lot after a long rain on a hot summer day, that's putrid!...See More2017 Spring Cool Season Grow List
Comments (30)Rebecca, Lettuce transplants very easily. To ensure I have no problems, I always start the seedlings in paper cups I can plant (I use the tiny Dixie cups sold to go in bathroom cup dispensers) or in peat pellets. That way, no matter the age of the plants, I can transplant them with no real root disturbance. Lettuce seedlings generally need more light that the light shelf can get them and will get leggy fast, so as soon as the first tiny sprouts appear, I move them outdoors. I can carry then indoors, if needed, but since they're pretty cold-tolerant, I really don't need to carry them in very much if at all. Mary, Sow the seed slightly later than OSU recommends and you'll be fine. Carrot seed is slow to germinate in cold soils, but much quicker in warmer soils so the trade-off when planting later is minimal. It can take carrot seeds up to 30 days to germinate in cool soils but significantly less in warm soils, so you can get seedlings up before the end of March from a mid-March sowing or you can get seedlings up before the end of March from an early-March sowing. The difference is that the extended amount of time the seeds spend in cool soil between early and late March increases the chance something will happen to the seeds. Honestly, carrots are fairly easy if you sow them when the soil is a bit warmer. Look at how easily the closely related Queen Ann's Lace self-sows itself around by the hundreds and thousands of plants everywhere every year. Kim, I occasionally have harvested carrots even later than that---well into July in one year without an appreciable loss in quality, but it must have been a fairly wet, cool summer. Dawn...See MorePlanting Peas early spring
Comments (49)Two things matter the temperature and hours of daylight. If you can control one of those you can plant them early but otherwise you pretty much wait until the weather warms up enough that they germinate. I planted an oat & winter pea mix as a living mulch but I think I'll turn it under to use the space for something else. This year so far I think potatoes sweet potatoes (what is a yam?) tomatoes corn zucc butternut garlic not sure what else. No snow or rain in N. Ca but I don't think it gets warm enough here for melons....See Moredigdirt2
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