Weekly Garden Journal Week 2

I really wish these flowers were from MY garden, but sadly they are not. They are in a wonderful little flower show that takes place every year and which we faithfully attend. We really need to see the flowers this time of year in New England because the weather and the outside scenery can be downright depressing! We are still dealing with cold, raw wind and temps are going down to 11 degrees F tonight....ugh. I am pretty well sick of it.

Over the weekend I had hoped against hope that I would be able to plant peas or put a few things out in the cold frame...nope. Too cold! And the soil is nowhere near workable yet. Instead, we thinned and transplanted some of our little seedlings.

Just one in each cup now! I am curious (and sort of nervous) to see how they will fare. We used a hint from Mother Earth News and used a plastic fork with the outer tines broken off to gently dig them up and transplant them to their own little paper cup full of damp potting soil. Digging them up was a bit tricky because they have some pretty strong roots and really didn't feel like being transplanted, but we managed! Then we carefully watered them and set them back under the lights.

The other garden news of note is our new cold frame, which is finished and ready to go! We built it out of Trex with a hinged lid made from a wooden frame surrounding a piece of Lexan (kind of a like a sheet of Plexiglass-we found ours at Home Depot). I do not think this is the cheapest way to build a cold-frame but we wanted to build it to last. Glass was our first thought, but due to the amount of snowfall we get, it didn't seem like a good option.

I think this week I will need to pick up some good soil to put inside (or I may try the suggestion in this article about mixing dog food with compost) and then I will try to plant lettuce seeds and perhaps a couple of the larger seedlings out there.

Of course, we are due to get another winter storm this Tuesday! One day before the first day of spring.....life in New England, I guess!