Dayton "Dirt" - March 13, 2015

Finally, the weather of March has returned and with it melting snow. Surprisingly, the snow is slowly disappearing which is a “good thing” as a fast melt could precipitate flooding. No signs of life are yet visible however as the snow recedes many spring flower bulbs will be popping through the soil because of the thick winter blanket that sealed in the ground heat.

At the nursery, soil mixing, potting, trimming and watering in a 12 hour per day schedule is the norm. The new seed germination chamber is working well as now several flats of peppers have been sown with tomatoes to follow near the end of the month. Sowing tomato seed too early will result in “stretched” plants by the time they can be sold in May. In fact, tomatoes are left to wilt almost to the point of no return in an effort to subdue growth and to keep them short and stocky. In Japan, vegetable plants in greenhouses are brushed by hand in order to mimic wind to “fool” the plants to thicken their cell walls instead of the stretching they normally do in a greenhouse.

Bare root David Austin English roses have just been potted and will be ready the first or second week of May. All the varieties that will be available have a heavy fragrance just like the old-fashioned Bourbon roses of yesterday. The tight flower with its high petal count too have that old-fashioned look along with a winter hardiness rating of climatic zone 5.

Bright sunny days require lots of watering in the greenhouses but also give us the opportunity to “pump” the plants with fertilizer to provide for the rapid growth caused by the warm sunshine and longer days of March. Only large-leaved begonias and dahlias are still not satisfied with the length of the days so that supplemental light to break the photo period on these plants is necessary until early April to keep the plants growing instead of going dormant and forming tubers.

Now that March is well under way, the warmer days of April are on the horizon.

 

Tom