High tunnel gardening

 March continues to tease us with warm weather and dash our hopes with cold, blustery rain. Hey, it’s not snow! The chorus frogs are singing in the vernal puddles in the field. There were earthworms all over the driveway this morning. Terry remarked that the robins ought to be lying on the ground, moaning that they couldn’t eat another worm. The hens were pretty excited too!

The onions are big enough that I put them out in the glass greenhouse.

Onions in the glass house

I’ve been working in the high tunnel. The lettuce, spinach, and mâche are really taking off. I think when we are done with this last head of store-bought lettuce, we should be able to have salads from the high tunnel, especially if I supplement with sprouts from my new sprouter.

Lettuce and mâche

Spinach

The Johnny Jump-Ups survived the winter and have started blooming again.

I love Johnny Jump-Ups! So cheerful.

I planted radishes, lettuce, peas, and cucumbers. I put up a trellis made of rabbit-guard fence by the peas and cucumbers. In the garden, I put the fence on both sides in a probably futile attempt at keeping out ground squirrels. I have this idea that the high tunnel will be varmint-free, but I’m sure when the weather is hot, we’ll have to leave the sides up. We’ll cross that road when we come to it.

Pea trellis

The final exciting high tunnel news is that Terry has planted a dwarf peach and dwarf cherry tree.

Peach tree and cherry tree

The idea is to protect them from polar vortex damage. They will take a few degrees below zero, but not 20 below. This is one of the ironies of climate change—the overall average temperature is creeping up, but with less of a temperature gradient between the arctic and the rest of the world, the jet stream gets all whacky, sometimes bringing us colder winter temperatures than normal. This is why the term “global warming” is misleading and has largely been replaced by “climate destabilization.” Nothing is like it used to be.

It’s been good to get outside again, good to have dirt under my nails. Now I have to remember to water everything. Rain does not give the high tunnel gardener a free pass.