Planting February 2021 Planting and Chat Thread

packyderms_wife

packyderms_wife

Neither here nor there.
Just realized I forgot to post this thread.

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Planting Calendar - Gardening by the moon

This planting calendar helps you pick the best days for gardening tasks based a 200-year-old formula. Our readers swear by it! Learn more.
www.farmersalmanac.com www.farmersalmanac.com

  • 7th – 8th
    Any root crops that can be planted now will do well.
  • 9th – 11th
    Barren days. Fine for clearing, plowing, fertilizing, and killing plant pests.
  • 12th – 13th
    Extra good for cucumbers, peas, cantaloupes, and other vine crops. Set strawberry plants. Plant peppers, sweet corn, tomatoes, and other aboveground crops in southern Florida, California, and Texas.
  • 14th – 15th
    Seeds planted now will grow poorly and yield little.
  • 16th – 18th
    Fine for planting beans, peppers, cucumbers, melons, and other aboveground crops where climate is suitable.
  • 19th – 20th
    Any seed planted now will tend to rot.
  • 21st – 23rd
    Plant seedbeds and flower gardens. Fine for planting beans, tomatoes, corn, cotton, cucumbers, peppers, melons, and other aboveground crops where climate allow
  • 24th – 27th
    Clear ground, turn sod, kill plant pests.
  • 28th – 28th
    Fine for sowing grains, hay, and forage crops. Plant flowers. Favorable day for planting root crops.
 
packyderms_wife

packyderms_wife

Neither here nor there.
It is frigid cold out right now -1F with a -13F windchill and it is really making me long for warmer days and green grass with the trees fully leafed out. I need to find my sprouting lid for a quart jar and start some sprouts, OC has requested mung bean sprouts.
 
F

Faroe

Un-spun
Warm day here. Put lettuce and cabbage seeds in rockwool. Six each. The cabbage can stay outside in some old aquariums, the lettuce will be better off indoors, but I don't want to get ahead of my self with indoor LED's. Still trying to find some inexpensive ones that I LIKE. Tall order, apparently. Nothing is as bright as my viv lights, but Arcadia T-5 kits are NOT cheap!

Once the seeds sprout, I'll *pot* them up in netcups and hydro jars.
 
M

Murt

Veteran Member
I have peppers that have sprouted and are about an inch tall
I have another tray of peppers and cold weather plants (broccoli--brussel sprouts--cabbage--onions on propagation mats
this is the first time that I have used propagation mats
The onions (a couple of hundred- maybe 250ish) that I planted in early November are looking very good
 
packyderms_wife

packyderms_wife

Neither here nor there.
Murt said:
I have peppers that have sprouted and are about an inch tall
I have another tray of peppers and cold weather plants (broccoli--brussel sprouts--cabbage--onions on propagation mats
this is the first time that I have used propagation mats
The onions (a couple of hundred- maybe 250ish) that I planted in early November are looking very good
Click to expand...

once the onion seeds sprout what is your next step to get them bigger?
 
M

Murt

Veteran Member
I haven't thought that far ahead---I will probably transfer them to a large pot then and when they develop small blubs put them in the ground
I have never started onions from seed--I just wanted to try something new --just in case the time comes when I need to know how
 
AlaskaSue

AlaskaSue

North to the Future
On Feb 28 I get to start my very earliest starts in my south-facing bedroom. Have been working on updating my garden plan as I have several containers I want to move close to the big raised bed; also found a new manger/feeder out in the back acreage and have plans to fix it and move it near the one I rehabbed last year for potatoes. Haven't decided what I'll put in both of those but probably some root crops - parsnips? beets? rutabagas?

I did start onions from seed last year; it was pretty awesome to actually get real honest-to-goodness bulbs even here in my zone 3!! That has encouraged me to put a couple of my containers up by the sliding door off my bedroom that faces south and try -- TRY -- to see if I can get okra. Well, my sister successfully grows artichokes north of Fairbanks so I have hope :)
 
packyderms_wife

packyderms_wife

Neither here nor there.
AlaskaSue said:
On Feb 28 I get to start my very earliest starts in my south-facing bedroom.
Click to expand...

This is when I will probably start mine as well. I'm ordering some heat mats and wish I knew where I could buy those tall domed lids for my seedling trays. Once my plants get going they get tall and fast but it's still too early to put them outside, which results in their hitting the tops of the shorter plastic lids and then rotting. I'm not sure how to handle this issue this year.

Jump Start CK64060 Heat Mat, Tray, 72 Cell Insert Hot House, Black

 
AlaskaSue

AlaskaSue

North to the Future
packyderms_wife said:
This is when I will probably start mine as well. I'm ordering some heat mats and wish I knew where I could buy those tall domed lids for my seedling trays. Once my plants get going they get tall and fast but it's still too early to put them outside, which results in their hitting the tops of the shorter plastic lids and then rotting. I'm not sure how to handle this issue this year.

Jump Start CK64060 Heat Mat, Tray, 72 Cell Insert Hot House, Black

Click to expand...
Last year I had a similar issue and just cut them down. It helped some of my starts and they thrived - but not all ~ I haven't used a heat mat yet, but I put a grow light in a box my brother had for some starts. I won't have to do garlic this year (well, we'll see - I planted a full bed in the fall but who knows how it will actually turn out!) - so it might be my okra....have to keep an eye on my dates for planting out.

My local green house doesn't have the domed lids you are talking about but the big one in Anchorage does. Last year, I cut down water bottles and used those for each individual seedling but that took a LOT of room!

Just found domed lids online...would you believe $25.00 for ONE (lid only)!! Yikes. :(
 
packyderms_wife

packyderms_wife

Neither here nor there.
AlaskaSue said:
Last year I had a similar issue and just cut them down. It helped some of my starts and they thrived - but not all ~ I haven't used a heat mat yet, but I put a grow light in a box my brother had for some starts. I won't have to do garlic this year (well, we'll see - I planted a full bed in the fall but who knows how it will actually turn out!) - so it might be my okra....have to keep an eye on my dates for planting out.

My local green house doesn't have the domed lids you are talking about but the big one in Anchorage does. Last year, I cut down water bottles and used those for each individual seedling but that took a LOT of room!

Just found domed lids online...would you believe $25.00 for ONE (lid only)!! Yikes. :(
Click to expand...

Yep that's the problem. I'm going to see what Harbor Freight has in stock this coming Friday... barring severe weather. I have no idea what the local nursery has in stock. The other problem I have is mice, once the plants are big enough to uncover then the mice go after the plants. We've been battling mice this entire year, the only thing that makes me feel better about the situation is pretty much everyone I know has been battling mice this year, even my friend who is OCD when it comes to a clean and spare house. The mice have been horrid this year, no where like the invasions/infestations they get in Australia but dang.
 
M

Martinhouse

Deceased
PW, maybe you could get a whole lot of empty 3-liter bottles at a recycling center and make tall domes of them and then plant your seed starts in little circles that would fit under them.
 
F

Faroe

Un-spun
When my seedlings are outside, I have to protect them from sparrows and chickens. I'm keeping the kale in 10 gallon glass aquariums with hardware cloth lids.
 
S

summerthyme

Administrator
_______________
Murt said:
I haven't thought that far ahead---I will probably transfer them to a large pot then and when they develop small blubs put them in the ground
I have never started onions from seed--I just wanted to try something new --just in case the time comes when I need to know how
Click to expand...
Don't wait for them to form small bulbs (they won't, unless you grew a variety not appropriate for your day length). What you want is for the stalks to be (ideally) the size of a pencil. Bigger isn't always better- the largest ones often start bulbing early, and never get very big.

Onions are day length dependent... the "long day" onions (appropriate for the north) are triggered to start bulbing when the day length reaches 14 hours. "Short day" onions are grown in the South... they start bulbing at around 12 hours daylight.

The "trick" to getting the best yields is to plant as early as possible (but not until you're sure you won't see a hard freeze- onion plants will stand a light frost, but will succumb to mid-twenties) and get them to grow as large as possible before they start bulbing. In our short climate, a difference of 2 weeks in getting the plants in can mean *double* the yield.

I plant mine in long wide rows... in 2019, I had two, 60 foot rows with the onions planted 4" apart in all directions in a row. It was around 2400 plants. Weeding is a bigger at first... if you can, use a "hay cutter weeder" (not sure what the official name is... they are a hoe (either the small hand held one I have, or a standard long handled hoe) made from a triangle knife section off a haybine or mower or a Cobra head how, and do a thorough clean weeding twice in the first month, you're usually home free.

2019 was a crazy year for onions. I grew Walla Walla sweets and Good as. Cold as are a super long storage onion... I actually still have firm, perfect onions in August, when the new crop is ready to harvest. They are normally a nice, medium sized cooking onion... maybe 8-12 ounce at the top. Well, in 2019, I had multiple Copras thst were over a pound! The largest was 27 ounces! I ended up with 11 bushels of onions off 22 bunches of plants!

Summerthyme
 
M

Murt

Veteran Member
I planted yellow granex and texas 1015
These should be day length appropriate for my location
 
Txkstew

Txkstew

Veteran Member
This is my first real try at onions. I ordered my starts from Dixondale Farms Onion Plants - We Know Onions!
Short day varieties. They have some videos on their site showing how to grow onions. One thing everyone says, is onions are heavy feeders, and like lots of water. They suggest applying a balanced 13-13-13 at planting, then Ammonia Sulfate fertilizer, every 5 to 10 days during the vegetative stage. When bulbs begin to form, stop fertilizing. Lots of Youtube videos on growing onions as well. I weeded this bed right after I took this pic. Planted mid November.

IMG_20210208_085550-1.jpg
 
packyderms_wife

packyderms_wife

Neither here nor there.
Just got notice from Amazon that my heating mats and the thermostat for the mats are on their way!!! OC bought me three new seed trays with the 8 inch clear dome lids that have vents on the top, I'm so excited. I still need to buy a couple of more items for this years garden but if I don't get them this year it's not the end of life as I know it, lol.

I'm hoping we can get into the garden early enough this spring to put in pipes for a domed cover and add plastic to the top. I know should have done that last fall, well with the PVC pipes anyway, but we never got it done. I have some wall of waters and would like to direct start some tomatoes in the ground.

I'm going to try leeks again this year, he bought a package of heirloom leeks at the garden store that are of russian origins, I'm hoping they're the same type that Martha Stewart was selling twenty years ago hers were simply named Russian Blue Leeks, no botanical name. If so then they did very well in our garden and I had some winter over and do a reseed the second year. I had baby leeks everywhere! This is when we were growing food in the front yard, people would walk by and want to know what kind of flowers I was growing, lol. Cabbages and leeks, and they didn't believe me!
 
Cardinal

Cardinal

Chickministrator
_______________
I got some berry bushes in 5 gal buckets in my living room facing the south glass door.
Also planted some strawberries, asparagus and rhubarb.
Got some potatoes hardening on the window sill and some sweet potatoes I'm waiting for to sprout.
I want a couple of peach trees and a couple of dwarf apples trees.
I think that is a good enough start for this year.

As soon as this cold snap passes the buckets go out on the south facing deck.
 
P

philkar

Veteran Member
I have sprouted kennebecs, Yukon Golds, and red pontiac potatoes that I will hopefully get in the ground on Sat. This year I am going to stagger the plantings of my potatoes. We put up trellises for the garden peas and sugar snaps and we hope to plant those on Saturday. I have started seeds for tomatoes and peppers. And I started some Zucchini just because I can! I am looking forward to a great garden this year.

I issued a challenge to a neighbor kid that is about 8 to grow a bigger pumpkin than me. He stops by every few days to see what I am doing to make sure that he is doing the same! That has been the most fun of all. We researched helpful nematodes and different varieties of pumpkins. He has become quite knowledgeable and will present me with a real run for my money I think!

I planted short day onions in Sept and they are beautiful. Almost time to pull the dirt off the bulbs. I am still learning how to grow a decent onion. Hopefully, Summerthyme, I will get some bulbs like you spoke of earlier!
 
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