Is the cold weather changing your Seed Starting schedule?
 

All over the state , air temps are running 20 degrees below normal and there's a snowpack of 2 feet on the eastern side where the blizzard hit hard. Soil temp is 31F at 4 inches.
Tomatoes and peppers are hopefully going in on time, but what about Spinach , lettuce, cabbage and the rest of the cole crops ? What will be the time delay in soil temps catching up to warmer air temps? What is the adjustment for this?
The ground will be mucky too. No complaining after 7 years of drought though.

I'm afraid that I'm going to miss pea season, darn darn darn!

- Lisa

It's way to early to worry about spring planting. Once the frost goes out of the ground things can dry out quickly. With some wind and sun in March, we could be looking at dry conditions in April.
April in 2018 started cold and wet. By mid month the farmers were concerned about delays in planting. It all changed quickly and 80% of the corn was in the ground by the last week.
Also, our melt off and rains don't penetrate the frost line. We'll be below zero by Sunday night, but have finally started to dry out. Don't fret, you'll be sinking seeds in April.

Not having an exceptionally cold year here; but it is too wet. We still have March to dry out in.

Well, i don,t go by todays temperatures to start my seed. There will be 6 to 8 weeks window of time until i plant out. And there is no way to know how the weather will be then except for the statistical weather data. I use WEATHER UNDERGOUND to get the data.
That is the best one can do.

In N. Florida we are having an unusually warm and wet year. Nothing close to the chill hours we had last year, so I’m concerned that my apple and pluot harvest will be zilch.
And the humidity has me concerned for the coming tomato season. Winter/Spring is about the only dry air we get here ...

Lisa, downriver from you a few miles the temps are back up into the 50s and the snow is all gone and flowers are blooming, the birds all singing and everything is great...NOT!

The peppers have been in the soilless mix for ten days and tomatoes will be started this weekend right on schedule for May 5-10 planting outside. It is a struggle to remember what the garden looked like without a foot or two of snow covering. I am sticking to the normal schedule for seed starting just in case we ever get out of the polar express.

I have plants ready to start hardening off outside. Right now it is cloudy and thirty degrees F. I looked ahead at some forecasts for all of March and it mostly shows cloudy, becoming cloudy, or partly cloudy for most of the month. It also shows many morning temps in the teens and twenties. When we do get some sunny days, I really need to take advantage of them and set some plants outside for a few hours.


I also look forward to watering them quickly with a sprayer on my garden hose as they sit in their flats. When I know the nights will be warm enough, I will let them have a garden party and a sleep over outside. I need to be careful though. One year, the forecast for the night was temps in the mid forties. I got out of bed and all my plants were dead from a light frost. A frost can sneak up on you.

[QUOTE=DonDuck;728213]I have plants ready to start hardening off outside. Right now it is cloudy and thirty degrees F. I looked ahead at some forecasts for all of March and it mostly shows cloudy, becoming cloudy, or partly cloudy for most of the month. It also shows many morning temps in the teens and twenties. When we do get some sunny days, I relly need to take advantage of them and set some plants outside for a few hours.[/QUOTE]
That sounds like Pittsburgh weather.

For in the ground sowing, I'll start worrying in another month. For tomatoes, I start only a few in about a month, the bulk in 2 months (about May 1st). That's when I need good weather, as I start tomatoes (the day of their germination) outside.



Last year, no early spring sowing, as it snowed 9 of the first 16 days of April.:(

I planted some herb seeds outside in large containers about ten days ago. I expected them to germinate when the soil is warm enough in late March. I noticed yesterday some were already germinating. It got down to the high twenties last night so I expect those to be goners. I planted all of them heavily at different depths and expect some of them to survive the future cold weather, germinate and grow. If they don't I will reseed and wait for them to germinate.

Not yet because I'm not starting seeds inside.
Got my mind on growing corn maybe this year.
Garden went fallow for a year.
Weather is horrible supposed to be 27 F this coming Monday.
Rainy as we speak.

My tomato plants have been out a couple of weeks, but it's been nothing but rain and very little sun. I'm worried about summer bulbs and rhizomes rotting and my newly planted annuals drowning, especially things in pots.

I grow year round so no winter blues. Started testing that method a couple years ago and
often go straight to the back room before my coat comes off. Good therapy after a crazy
work day.

Did a tom germination test early January and they looked so good I potted up a dozen.
(dwarfs and micros since they behave and do not bolt)
Started leeks a couple weeks ago. Early beet starts last weekend. Potting up peppers in 4inch
pots this weekend.

Snowfall last night. Massive garden in my grow room. One four foot shelf, LED and t5...
dancing in a south window that is more often grey overcast skies. (massive haha)
Fresh cut salads so it is always in succession. 3-4 trays out/up and into the kitchen...3-4 trays
under light....rotation.

Looking out at the large snowbanks, and still experiencing -26 C overnight temperatures; instinct tells me to delay starting but logic tells me to stay on the regular schedule. The end of the season can come just as suddenly as mid August, so they will need all the start time available. High temperature today (March 1st) was -9 C with a vicious north wind, but there is a lot of heat in the sun in a sheltered area.

[SIZE=4][FONT=Comic Sans MS]We were having a very mild winter until about a month ago, so I started my pepper & tomato seeds inside, also lettuce & bok choi. Then we started getting snow, and have broken a 113 year snow record- we have gotten 25" so far (annual average is about 3") I have 5ft snowbanks in my back yard where my garden should go ! I can't guess when I will be able to make my garden--- there's a LOT of snow that has to melt first, and out night lows will be in single digits for some time--[/FONT][/SIZE]

Same here, Jo. For Feb Omaha broke the all time record for snow. We had back to back 10 inch snowfalls with some prior snow still hanging around. Temps have been far below average and Sunday night will set a record low of -9F.The forecast isn't bringing much hope for near normal temps until the very end of March.

- Lisa

The rest of Canada is expecting a warm up by mid-march... but not for us! :( The extra cold temperatures have made for a lot of sea ice this year, and that will keep us chilly for awhile... until the icebergs are ready to do it!

I do have some indoor greens coming on but am not getting that gardening feeling yet. I'm expecting a return of aphids to the greenhouse when it gets warm enough, so I don't want to start a bunch of their favorite stuff that will make it a paradise for them. :evil: Will try keepin em on a lean diet so I can better deal with it early on. :? (What a mess I made with the late season greenhouse carrots:no:).

I'm going to delay my onion, greens & cabbage planting a few weeks later than last year.

:roll:It's too early for me to be such a klutz. I started some allium seed, what I think is Egyptian Walking Onion seed (double klutz, I didn't label it last year). I went to pull the seed coat off the one germination (of 10), and uprooted it. The triple klutz is when I remembered that alliums don't need to have the seed coat removed. :(:(:(

[QUOTE=Tormato;728424]:roll:It's too early for me to be such a klutz. I started some allium seed, what I think is Egyptian Walking Onion seed (double klutz, I didn't label it last year). I went to pull the seed coat off the one germination (of 10), and uprooted it. The triple klutz is when I remembered that alliums don't need to have the seed coat removed. :(:(:([/QUOTE]
I could send you scapes later this year if you wish. Or seed, if my Egyptian walkers produce any. Let me know.:)

Do you mean EWO bulbils? I give away 1-2 gallons of them a year. :?:



I've been trying to force plants to make seed by pinching off bulbils early, with very limited success.

looking outside does not put me in a seed starting mood. i have 6 to 7 ft of snow on the garden right now. i should be getting some onion seeds started. pepper seeds should go in within a couple weeks, and tomatoes around the first week of april. at some point it will get warmer, and the snow will start to melt. its going to take several weeks for that much snow to disappear. it always does though.

so, no the cold weather in march and april won't change my seed starting schedule by much. plant outside date will totally be dependent on the weather.



keith

I like winter but i'm sick of it too, mostly because the snow is still remaining due to a shortfall of professional equipment for the area. For secondary streets the city employees private contractors who use a blade on the front of a pick up and no salt or sand treatment.The pickups get stuck themselves and leave a lot of snow behind. Wish I had researched this before I moved here but the snow removal was so efficient in the other northern cities that I have called home it wasn't on my radar.

So far, I have spinach germinated and about half potted up. I'm thinking of growing it in some sort of rigged sweater box if I can't get to the raised bed. I may hold off starting cabbage till later in the week once I hear the long range forecast. No idea when and if to start peas in cups. I seeded the first of two trays of tomatoes today, consisting of cherry and hanging basket types, dwarf project and early maturing varieties. Started to pot up some native perennials that have been in the starter seed for a while now. To keep my hands busy during the coming arctic front, flowers are going in paper towel to germinate. This was my project today:

This is getting real old. Down to -31 C overnight. The snow is not melting, but sublimating a little due to the wind and dry air, I guess.

Tomato and pepper seeds are planted right on schedule. Now we wait for the garden to clear off and the temps to raise.

It's very wet here in Tidewater Virginia too - thank God I have raised beds. I planted some Super Sugar Snap peas out today.

Most of my tomatoes, peppers, and onions have sprouted indoors and I have my first set of 8 grafted tomatoes healing in their humidity chamber. Fingers crossed.

Jeff

Like i said in my other post, i go by LFD, which is around April 5th. I just potted up my pepps n mater seedings. So roughly i have 4 weeks til plant out.
The next 3 nights we have forecast for freezing temps. I have some cole/cool crops out there. But i am not worried about those

I might have to make some adjustments to my usual timeline because of space issues. In previous years, I have started hardening off my onions mid to late March. That made space under the lights available for the tomatoes and peppers.

This year, with the low temps we are having, I'm not sure I'll be able to get the onions out in the garden by mid April. Things change quickly here so lets hope it starts warming up soon.

Here in 7a, just outside of Philly, I'll be starting tomato seeds this upcoming weekend, the 9th of March, in my unheated garage for outdoor transplanting the last weekend in April. Temps this week are way below normal but will be good by this weekend. If I had planned to start this weekend I'd have to delay, so the warm weather will be back just in time.

I'm excited because I'll be building 4 new beds with 5 plants each. 15 of those plants will be (not sure how to say this) F3 seeds from a super-sweet orange currant from Sungold. Once I stabilize it, I plan on crossing it with some different things - what, I don't know.

[QUOTE=PaulF;728506]Tomato and pepper seeds are planted right on schedule. Now we wait for the garden to clear off and the temps to raise.[/QUOTE]



Only one plant on the trellis must mean grape not hardy kiwi?