Today has been an unseasonably warm day...I remember at one point RAF told me the temperature was 79° F. That's just crazy for the last day of February.
And so what that means is that we're in for another round of severe weather, and this round sounds like it might be really bad.
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| Severe weather outlook from the National Weather Service (Little Rock, AR (weather.gov)) accessed 2/28/2023. |
Right now, we're in the area designated as "Slight Risk" but really too close for comfort. We'll have to keep a close eye on this as we get closer to Thursday.
But since it was so nice out, I decided to set some of my seedlings and module trays outside in the sunshine.
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| Plants and seeds in module trays enjoying the sunshine. |
The old well house actually makes a great place to set seedlings. I do need to add another piece of plywood to the south side so I'll have room for all of the plants I expect to have in pots by next week. (I potted up 10 more tomato plants this evening, so I'm quickly getting lots of pots that are going to need lots of space!)
After I finished work this afternoon, I decided to go ahead and plant some carrots. I gathered up some well "cured" cow patties from the field and crumbled them up over a small section of garden row to make a nice smooth surface. After a good watering, I planted three little rows of carrots, trying to be careful not to get them too thick like I did last year! I topped them off with more crumbled-up cow manure, then covered everything with a board to keep them from drying out (or washing away!) before they germinate.
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| Using a board to protect carrot seeds until they germinate. |
I had thought I might set out my green peas this afternoon, but with the potential for large hail, I decided to only set out a few of the biggest ones and hold the rest back until the weekend. The pea roots are starting to reach out the bottom of their toilet paper tubes, but they aren't intertwined like the roots of the Fava beans were. I think they'll be Ok until the weekend. I hope they'll be Ok.
Yesterday afternoon I had fastened some chicken wire to the south side of the cattle panel where the peas will be planted. This should keep the rabbits from reaching them from that side of the panel.
To plant, I just stuck the little trowel into the dirt up to the handle and leaned the trowel over so I could drop the cardboard tube into the opening behind it. Not "no-dig," but very little soil disturbance compared to what I used to do with the tiller!
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| Getting ready to set out some of the green peas. |
What I found really surprising was just how easy it was to push the trowel into the ground and move the soil out of the way. Last year the cucumbers were planted in that row, followed by a "cover crop" of purple hull peas. I didn't remove the roots for any of the plants in the row...I just cut everything off at ground level when I cleared the row in the fall. It was really an exciting thing to find the soil that loose, and it makes me hope that the "no-till" approach is really helping improve the soil.
But back to planting. After I set each tube into the ground, I firmed them in and made sure to cover all of the cardboard with soil so moisture wouldn't wick up out of the ground. And finally, I put scraps of metal from the fence in the ground beside each tiny stem to hopefully keep the cutworms from chewing the little stems in two.
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| Scraps of metal fence wire to try to deter cutworms. |
I only planted six tubes of peas then decided that was enough to start out with. The last step was to put up a temporary barrier on the north side of the cattle panel to try to keep the rabbits from eating these first plants until I can get the chicken wire put up on that side.
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| Scraps of fence material to hopefully protect the peas from the rabbits. |
Because I learned the hard way that rabbits can easily go through 2" x 4" wire, I used two pieces of scrap fencing, and offset the top piece so that the openings right by the peas were only 2" x 2". I hope that's enough to protect the peas for a few days.
And maybe if it does hail, the wire will also help protect the peas from that. I really, really, really want some peas, doggone it!