We still have many bushels of squash between the breezeway and the basement stores. Some of the potatoes are breaking dormancy and I am sorting out types that are holding longer for replanting this spring. TPS from potato berries I harvested from a myriad of plants given to me by Tom Wagner are sprouting, my long season peppers are just starting to show their first true leaves, and my first planting of tomatoes, consisting of Stupice, Siberian and Sasha’s Altai have all emerged. Last year my early tomatoes went into the ground on March 28th here. That beat my prior earliest planting by several weeks and we were eating fresh tomatoes by the end of May. Some years I cannot plant tomatoes until May. <shrug> oh well. Regardless, there are those early more cold-tolerant ones ready for the ground as soon as the nights stop freezing here. Being on an island in the middle of a good sized lake has it’s advantages. Usually I get an extra three weeks at both ends of the season. As soon as the ice comes off the lake we seldom frost again until fall. In the fall we do not generally get our first hard killing frost here until late october. In a banner year like last year that meant our growing season was 7 months. Not bad for this far north.
I have also started my long season peppers. De Arbol, Thai Dragon, Lemon Drops, and Siberian peppers are all emerged and doing fine. I grow these in pots in the yard usually, and I even have 3 Siberian peppers and a Peppadew that I have overwintered in the house. They are not terribly thrilled about being houseplants for the winter, but they look better than they would outside. In the snow. Cold. Dead. <smile>
I am dreaming of green, spring, and digging in dirt that is not in a bag labeled POTTING SOIL.
