09 Mar Wed 2011
Cold Frames Maintenance and Preparation
Preparing and Maintaining Cold Frames
I have installed Plastic Covered Cold Frames; they are to be electrically heated with lights beneath the plastic covered lids.The Cold Frames require spring maintenance (repairing & replacing some of the plastic covers) and preparing the cold frames for plants (cleaning the inside of the cold frames, running the electric line to the cold frame area, stringing the heating lights inside the cold frames, placing the repaired covers on the cold frames and lastly we turn on the lights to thaw and heat the inside of the cold frame planting areas). In about 7 to 10 days the cold frames will be ready to receive and protect our new potted plants until early June; when we will relocate the plants in their peat pots to the produce fields.
Thus we will be able to have a SuperiorLake growing season of 120+ days.
The Cold Frames area is shown below.
14 Feb Mon 2011
SeedPlantingRowCrops
May 15 has passed…and hopefully no more hard frosts after the first week of June. I will start planting the seed crops for beans, corn, cucumbers and squash. I have adapted my one row planter for mounting on my Garden Tractor. I have plates for the planting of the vegetables listed above. I have previously prepared the planting areas by rotor tilling and have used the my tractor mounted row marker to lay out the rows to be planted. My nest order of business is to load the seeds into the seed hopper of the planter (shown below).
Then I will start planting the rows with the planter as shown below.
By 5-6 June the plants will start sprouting up as shown below in photo from June 2010:
