Today my wife and I worked in the garden, on our cold frame and started some seeds! Our location falls within USDA Zone 7b and today it was in upper 30’s F (3 C). The soil temperature in the garden was about 41 F (5 C) under the mulch. Even so we direct seeded some arugula, spinach, loose leaf lettuce and bibb lettuce in the garden. We moved the mulch out of the way temporarily and created little rows. Even with the cold our rosemary is blooming like crazy! We are hoping that it will warm up some this week.

We also started loose leaf, bibb and romain lettuce in some cell packs to place in our new coldframe. In order to try and maintain overnight heat we added a bunch of jugs of water and placed a piece of plywood on top of them to make a shelf for our seeds. This also raises them out of the shadow cast by the tall straw bails. The temperature in the cold frame during the day today was around 55 F (12.8 C) which should be pretty good for the lettuce seeds. Let me know if you have any tips for increasing or maintaining temperature.

The water in the jugs came from our rain barrels which I forgot to include in the first garden post. We purchased them when we moved in from Ace Hardware who installed the spigots. The only small problem is that they were placed a little high, which makes it difficult when they are almost empty. Additionally I added a old hose to so that water doesn’t go everywhere when filling buckets or jugs. The screen that they added to the top works great. They will typically fill (50 gallons – 189 L) after one good rain event, hence the need for the overflow pipe.

My wife also transplanted some daffodils (Narcissus) from the front yard to our new herb garden to spruce it up! Cheers!