I love it! It’s time to start transplanting all those gorgeous seedlings that I have been carefully watering and feeding and nurturing and baby talking — oops, didn’t mean to confess to that last part!
But the garden beds are ready, raked and raring to go just as much as I am. Now before you start shaking your heads, I know that I am really pushing it here in Zone 6b. Our average last frost date is May 10th and here it is at the end of March. Yikes! But I like to gamble every year and, thankfully, most years I win big.
We haven’t even had Dogwood Winter or Blackberry Winter yet so we’ll see if I end up winning this spring or if I end up buying my brassica plugs from the local nursery. If my now giant broccoli, cabbage, Yod Fa and cauliflower seedlings survive some cold nights over the next six weeks, they will give me lots of yummy food way sooner than most gardens.
On those nights that dip below 32 degrees I have a few tricks up my sleeve to help me win my big gamble every year. I bought TONS of row cover a frost blanket and PVC pipe years ago and I certainly get my money’s worth out of them. I’m talking about low tunnels. Every extra layer I put over my tender seedlings buys me a few degrees of frost protection. Row cover – which is very thin – buys me about four degrees. Frost blanket – which is much heavier – will buy about eight degrees. And if I put PVC in the ground to form hoops and put clear plastic over the frost blanket I’ve added another four degrees, especially if the day has been sunny and I cover early enough to create a greenhouse effect. Altogether I can get about twelve degrees of protection. That means that my sweet little seedlings will tolerate temps down to around twenty degrees. So let’s go roll the dice!
