Breaking Ground

Today was a day for breaking ground in more than one way. To start with, the remaining seedlings in the cold frame all saw the light of day. Cilantro, chard, spinach and lettuce all sprouted, the latter being the most aggressive and shown in this picture.

The soil temp in the cold frame is now consistently about 60 degrees during daylight hours, and holds enough heat to keep the plants from freezing at night, even when temperatures have been dropping down to the upper teens.

My hope is that our backyard cold frame is as successful as Tom's is out at Perkins. Tom had some spinach that overwintered in his cold frame. When I was out at Perkins today, I took this picture. Sure, some of the edges are frost nipped, but he can basically pick a salad out of his cold frame now.

While we were at Perkins, we cleaned out all forty plots from leftover items from years past. Chicken wire, tomato cages, wooden and metal stakes, lost hand tools, hoses, trash, water bottles and more.

We also pulled the starter on the rototiller and it fired up on the sixth pull. With a little time left at the end of the day, we tilled a few rows. With a little more work, we will have an area ready to go for early spring planting.

Next time we can get a few folks out there, we'll shore up the fence around the spring planting plot. And we'll continue to chip away at the rototilling as more of the garden becomes sufficiently dry.