Springing

The Snow is starting to fade to the ground, but even where the land is accessible it is just waterlogged. I imagine it will be a while yet before the land is well drained. I am thinking most about this affecting our ability to dig and haul compost from area stables. Perhaps some places have a front end loader and piles that are on high ground right next to a gravel road. We should be so lucky.


Here is a shot of the first and only load of compost so far, before I was sick and before the snows. Like I said before, it was dug out of a ditch where there were apparently once tall piles of it. This stuff has rotted and settled for years. It is beautiful, and is a tiny fraction of what they had there. We shall return.



Though we can't spread and dig now, the seed- starting season has swept us up and we are making use of the compost, some sphagnum moss and native soil to start seeds and make transplants. A little late, but I've heard this happens to others as well. The house is pretty dark so a well lighted place for the starts is overdue.

This is the frame i put together from scraps in the barn for a small, portable plastic tunnel/greenhouse. The top angle pivots and the obtuse angle is fixed. long vertical members are 6 feet, horizontal around 3 feet. I expect it will be necessary to stake the thing down when it is skinned, and to stake the side flaps as well. It's about tall enough for me to move relatively easily in, though a few inches shorter than I am.

I think I will like this design, as it is rigid and different work paths are revealed at different settings.



Here it is opened up a bit. I can get in here with the working-at-ground-level posture but as you can see there is a good bit more to the footprint. It opens up far enough for the cross-member to be horizontal, so it could span several planting strips. and i think will be good for an emergency frost cover, or to give a boost to heat-loving plants if the spring is cool.

But I misjudged the path of the sun and this site isn't as good for a starting greenhouse as I'd hoped. The solution was much more desirable anyway.


Inspired by Frank and Christina Allen's plexiglass-walled front porch passive solar heating, I rigged this up once I realized the front porch got a lot more sunlight this time of year than I thought. The area is already protected and semi-enclosed, adjacent to a warm body (the house), much larger and easy to work in, and most importantly close to the house, which means we pay it better attention.

We have high winds right now so the fastening is being put through the paces. Currently residing in the sun room are red russian kale, Black from Tula, Amish paste, and Henderson's pink Ponderosa tomatoes, chocolate habanero and fish peppers, and red and white cabbages. We need shelves in here and lots more seeds planted very soon, not to mention sunny weather so it warms up real well.