One benefit of no-till permanent beds is that in spring, when it is wet and mucky in a lot of other places, the compost mulch surface I leave for my spring planting is the first thing that’s ready to go. Yesterday I was able to direct seed carrots and spinach using the Jang Seeder, and the Parsnips went in by hand.
These special Parsnip seeds were handled a little differently…as it was quite an expensive seed to get to try, we only have this one package, a replacement is not really an option, and we really want this beet-shaped variety to work so I don’t have Parsnips that I can’t dig. The seeds were primed overnight (soaked in water with some compost) and then seeded by hand in rather crooked handmade rows. Without a ton of seed, using a seeder wouldn’t be a good idea as if I miscalculated the seeding rate we might not have a full bed, or still have extra left over. Adaptive Seeds has these Parsnips at a ~65% germination rate, which is a little low for my liking, hence the priming and also making sure we use every single seed.
So those three crops are good to go, and the compost mulch holds enough moisture that at least for a couple days here I won’t have to irrigate.
It’s another nice day today so I’ll look and see what else I might be able to get away with planting this early.
Lastly, the second YouTube video is up on the new YouTube channel. In this one we transplant plant the hoop house and reflect on the biggest lessons we learned with our first year of hoop house growing.
Graham
thanks for reading complimentary blueberry juice
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