Start on the Seed Planting

Species crocus.

The planting board will help me remember when I plant more crocus next fall.

The fig trees before pruning.

The Chicago brown turkey fig after pruning.

The fig clones planted and at home

Tomatoes and peppers in 72 packs.

This is one of the fig clones.

Freezing water does a number on cement.

The wall will have to be fixed and soon.

With plastic on the inside of the greenhouse, I turned on the furnace with Susan's help. We will heat the space for about a month.  During the day the sun heats up the interior so that the venting system opens and closes to keep and even 80 degrees.  At night I have the heat set to 55 degrees so as not to break the bank.  Today I planted tomatoes, peppers, and parsley.  I have been hot water treating the parsley seed - a shot of near boiling water seems to make them germinate in less than 21 days. The fig trees are out of the garden shed where they wintered and into the greenhouse - but I don't think they had a good winter.  I had to really prune them severally to find what I thought was live wood.  I did bring, as you see, the clones back from Appleton and of the 8 we started out with I have two possible exact duplicates of Figgy - and all I really need is at least one to replace her.  Oh well, that is what garden experimentation is all about.

I also started lettuce a few days ago and planted radish and arugula outside next to the house in a bed that is under the windows of the house ( in the picture with the crocus and panting board).  The crocus on that little slope are continuing to bloom and reinforce that spring is here.  All we need is the snow to disappear to help us know it is true.

I need to get to the apple trees as they need their spring pruning but still have snow under them and working in snow is no fun, plus I do need some ladder work and I don't want to be in the snow for that.
The cold frames have had a water issue as the melting snow seems to want to run through them and not around them so I had to ditch two of them yesterday and hope that will help the spinach crops.

As the pictures show we have some issues with the greenhouse wall.  I guess I will have to bring in some cement guys to give me some advice as to how to fix this annual problem that water, ice, and freezing and thawing have done to the wall.  Because I don't use the greenhouse in the winter I thought the wall would not get so bad but I guess I was wrong.
Happy Gardening