A Small Tourist

A week ago, Annie Hammond told me her son Jacob was obsessed with growing things. He is only about 4 or 5, very small, but very energetic. I gave her some general advice about how to start a real garden. Today, Jonathan (Hammond) called and asked to come and see my raised beds. It served as a wake up call.

Before they came, I started dismantling some of the broken cold frame ribs. It needed to be done, but I figured this was the prompt I needed to get going. So, I took wood off of two of the beds and broke it up into small pieces before Jonathan and Jacob arrived.

The tour was brief, just sufficient to explain how to build a bed, get soil to put in it, the need for compost. Jacob truly was interested. He saw some onions that made it through the winter and wondered what they were. He noticed the spinach. I pointed out the turnips.

Even though it was brief, it got me going. I went to the Feed and Seed and bought 3 lbs of yellow and 3 lbs of red onion sets, and 5 lbs of Yukon Gold and 6 lbs of Pontiac Red potato seeds. I think I may have bought more onion sets than last year, but I didn't fill up my space last year and I will be giving some to Jonathan and Jacob.

I went ahead and prepared the bed for the onions, turned the soil and put some 10-10-10 fertilizer in. I didn't add any compost. When I was showing the Hammonds, I went by the compost piles. They seemed pretty much frozen.

I took the opportunity to put new batteries in the indoor/outdoor thermometers. I figured once I had it off its post, I might as well put the outdoor unit in the greenhouse to see how warm it will get in the day and how warm it will stay at night. It is 45F outside right now, but it got up to 90 in the greenhouse. I think the real test will be to see how it works over night.