Never too early for onions

With cold frames, planting can be done weeks earlier than usual.  I have already begin sowing the early spring crops inside, and they will go into outside and into the ground late February.  The process is quite simple.

Line the trey with newspaper to keep all soil crumbs in.  Then fill the trey with organic potting soil.  I use McEnroe, made in New York.  There are many options here.  You can make your own mix, order some online, or go to the store and buy some.  There are many recipes for homemade mixes on the internet, most of which contain some mix of pete or cocoa, perlite, compost, and dry nutrients.  Lowes sells Miracle Grow Organic Choice.    The McEnroe brand always gives good results, and can be purchaced in VB from our local organic farmer, Farmer John.       

After filling the trey with the good stuff, use something flat to flatten the surface of the soil.  This helps the seeds germinate evenly. 

Sprinkle seeds on the flattened soil surface.  I sow 4 varieties per trey, in quarter strips.  That should give me 20-40 plants in each quarter section.  Cover the seeds with a tiny layer of potting soil, and flatten again.  Bravo, you're almost done.   The trey now needs to be watered.  Soaking up water from underneith is a great way to moisten a freshly sown flat... 

Let the trey happily soak up water from another, slightly bigger, container until the top of the soil is moist.  The water level in the bigger container should only come half way up the sides of the trey so as not to spill in over top.  I use either purified water from the water store, or water from our well.  Chlorinated water (aka tap water) will cause much damage to those precious soil microbes.  Not to fear,  chlorine only stays in water that sits in pipes or any other closed systems.  Leaving water to sit out over night will off gas most most of it.  If your city uses chloramine to purify its tap water (Virginia Beach...yes), you must first run the water through a carbon filter to change the chloramine into chlorine.  The Britta type that fits onto the nozzle of your tap will do this job fine.   

A list of all the seeds I have sown this week....

Decisso Broccoli

Bloomsdale Spinach

Purplette Onion

Collard Greens

Winter Density Lettuce

Lacinato Kale

Rainbow Chard

Spanish Yellow Onion

Bunching Onion

Sherwood Leek

Moss Curled Parsley

Tatsoi

Veronica Cauliflower

Cassius Cauliflower

Red Ace Cabbage

Purple Kohlrabi. 

A few of the brassicas (kale, broccoli, cauliflower...) were the first to pop up.  Some seeds are a few years old and might not germinate as well or even at all.  The ones that do germinate will be transplanted after they have grown their first true leaves into individual cells.  There they will have their own space to grow and fill the soil with roots!     

             

The recently mulched garden is just waiting for the years first crops to be planted under the glass and cloth protection.