Gardening Update
What's a gardening nerd to do?
I plant a lot of sweet peppers. It's the only food that almost everyone in my family enjoys, plus they thrive in self-watering containers. Because I have an army of both (family members and self-watering containers), I had hoped to plant an army of peppers (fifty or so). But they take a long time to nurture, so they need to be planted at least eight weeks before the anticipated last frost.
But when's that going to be? It's a big (gardening) deal: If you plant too early, the plants get too big and you run out of room under the grow lamps. If you plant too late, you won't get any peppers before the fall frost swoops in.
I emailed two TDE readers who have a lot of gardening and weather experience. They're both anticipating a rough next two months:
Reader 1: My gut says COLD COLD COLD, followed almost immediately by super hot.
The ground frost levels are very deep and we are still seeing lots of cold days.
I would not plant before frost days unless I could cover with hot house containers, and then only with a southern exposure with lots of compost/mulch.
Reader 2: I think it will be late May before it's really safe from frost. We haven't had any days here yet where it actually felt like warmer weather was on the way -- we're supposed to get at least 3 inches of snow here later today [Sunday, March 29th].
Maybe concentrate on getting any cold-tolerant plants / seeds out. Young lettuce can put up with frost. Cabbage, radishes, peas, onions, potatoes, a lot of greens.
I had already started 25 peppers a few weeks ago, and now I've started another ten "King of the North" peppers (they don't need a long growing season). I'll just try to get three dozen into the containers this year. That'll be the best I can do,
Enjoy today's nice temperatures . . . before we plunge back into the coldrums.
