Fall/Winter Garden Log -- January 15, 2017

I've been working on making seed mats for the Spring garden while the cedar pollen floats by the windows outside.  If I go out, or even open the doors, the sneezing begins....and never stops! ha! Actually, its getting a little better since the daily allergy pills have finally kicked in and they are helping minimally.  

I really do recommend these for those gardeners, who like me, are over 60 and bending down over and over again is getting impossible.  All I have to do is rake the soil back, lay my mats down, and cover with the correct depth of soil. So much easier, especially with those tiny seeds.

Seed mats packaged up and ready to plant in March

So far I've created: 

Carrots

1. Shin Kuroda
2. NutriRed
3. Ginff
4. Rainbow F1
5. Atomic Red

Kale

1. Tronchuda
2. Siber Frill
3. Dazzling Blue
4. Pentland Brig
5. Scarlet
6. Red Russian
7. Blue Curled Scotch
8. Lacinato
9. Premier

Lettuce

1. All-Year
2. Salad Bowl Green
3. Salad Bowl Red
4. Winter Density
5. Red Romaine
6. Iceberg
7. Merlot
8. Freckles
9. Matina Sweet

Beets

1. Sweetheart
2. Cylindra
3. Golden
4. Chiogga

Swiss Chard

1. Orange
2. Cardinal
3. Erbette

Spinach

1. Bloomsdale
2. Gigante d'Inverno
3. Red Kitten
4. Viroflay
5. America
6. Palco
7. Regiment

Celery

1. Golden
2. Pink Plume
3. Peppermint Stick

I will describe more about these varieties when I plant them out this spring.

Meanwhile, the little pepper seeds are nice and warm and under lights and on the heat mats in the greenhouse.  I'm using new grow lights this year - these are the ones with the red blue IR and white full spectrum lights. It will be interesting to see if there is any difference from my old florescent light fixture that I've used for years. It worked just fine, but it got dropped this year and broke.

Starting the tomatoes next!