Tag Archives: grow lights

Guest post by Matthew, AKA Farmer Brown

It’s March 3rd, and there’s an inch of ice on the ground and single digit temps outside, of course nothing’s going on with the garden, right?

Well, actually, over the weekend, I harvested 2 gallons of arugula (from under the low tunnel), turned compost piles, and took more anti-vole measures (more on that in a future post).

I have nine trays of seedlings growing, including onion starts and fennel seedlings that are itching to be transplanted outside.  Nine trays exceeds our grow light capacity by one tray, so the leeks are hanging out on the sun porch, along with a bit of lettuce.

Seed Starting
There’s almost always something to do . . . .  I planted leeks and onions December 1^st.  I have my best onions transplants ever — many are roughly pencil thickness.  I seeded four seeds to a 1 ½” block and they’ve been under our grow light set-up, getting 16 hours of light a day.

I seeded fennel, celeriac, celery, flat and curly leaved parsley, and artichokes on January 4th.  I planted cruciferous (40 varietals of broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, rapa, collards, and kohlrabi), eggplant, bluebells, and breadseed poppies at the beginning of February.

Peppers and Tomatoes got planted 2/25 and 2/26 because I was feeling antsy for my 3/1 planned date.

Most everything germinated on my homemade heat boxes, since our basement is rather chilly right now.  The tomatoes and peppers are getting treated to an extra blanket of foam cloth to trap more heat for the seeds.

Now we just need the soil to warm-up enough for spring planting!  What are you planning to grow in your garden this year?