Its Time to Get Dirty!

We found out yesterday that members get access to the Inuvik Greenhouse in 5 days! Yes, this means I will have my hands in the dirt and will be prepping my soil for the season. As the weekend will be a big rush of new and excited gardeners (newbies and veterans), in all the excitement remember a few key tips:

1. Don't start planting this weekend! Put a lot of time into your soil. The more time and effort you put into your soil, the better your crop will be for the season. At least the first week should be spent on soil prep. I will blog all my soil tips and information later this week!
2. Don't use water during this first week. We learned on Sunday that utilities are about $8500.00/year at the greenhouse so don't waste water now. Any water or energy you spend watering is a waste as the water will be evaporating about as fast as you can add it to your garden.
3. Do start checking out the Seed Sharing Table as you can usually find some good free-be seeds here.
4. Do meet your neighbours and be friendly! Introduce yourself to the greenhouse staff and look for ideas to volunteer.
5. Don't start bringing in your plants from home quite yet. We woke up to snow this morning and the evenings/nights are still getting chilly.

 

My seeds I planted at home are really growing nicely. In one of my plots I am planning a plot of squash, cucumber, tomatoes, etc that will not be harvested until the end of August so I am glad to see these seeds have sprouted quite well. My tips for transplanting these seedlings into the garden is to wait until there are at least 2 sets of 'good' leaves on each plant. The first set of leaves doesn't count as these are like tester leaves or baby leaves! I am thinking with a couple weeks before transplanting my seeds seem right on 'schedule' this year. This means my rule of thumb for starting seeds just after Easter seems to work!!!

If your seedlings are much bigger than this then you are going to have trees by the time it is transplanting time (but its ok)!!! I started fennel by seed this year but am trying to figure out if it should be started early or planted straight into the garden. My plan is to get the big bulbs of fennel not just the leaves so this will be a good experiment. My roommate started corn seeds which is always fun. In a small garden plot you might get 2-6 ears of corn but it is more fun to see how tall the stalks will grow. At the greenhouse, I will estimate you will corn stalks about 6-10 feet tall!

Enjoy!

S.