March 7, 2026

Prepping the garden and hardening the seedlings

As temperatures start rising and the ground starts to dry out, I took the time to till the area I plan on putting down a portable, homemade greenhouse with netting for broccoli, cabbage and collards. I have a plan using t-posts and using some pvc 1/2" pipes for the roof area. The idea is to begin with plastic covering and, as the weather gets warmer, take the top plastic off and leave a netting covering. The sides will be greenhouse plastic, anchored down with wiggle wires.

I don't like to spray and just covering the plants with nets is a mess. I hope this will help. I will also be putting onions into the raised beds, as they can take cold weather and they are just getting too big in the trays.

I am going to look at mushroom soil from Lancaster County and see if I can use some of it for compost and some for mulch, as I want to do a much better job of landscaping around the house.

Today started out raw and a bit wet from some overnight rain and fog. By the time I decided to clean out the strawberry field, the sun had come out and it was really comfortable weeding where I put the strawberries in the fall. I lost about 10 strawberries out of 80, but I left a row of strawberries from last year alone and I can now dig them out and transplant them to this new site.

I had a limited number of strawberries last year, since it was the first planting. I had 6 plants from Walmart and 15 plants from a place in North Carolina. Naturally, the North Carolina strawberries, sold by a veteran of the Iraq war, are much better.

I then used my 40V HP Ryobi rear tine tiller to clear out an area on the far left of my garden. The soil was actually in very good shape. I had cleaned out the area last fall, where there were left over marigolds, tomatoes, peppers and lots of weeds. I used to get some leaf mold delivered to this same location by a neighbor of mine, so the soil is in excellent condition.

This coming week is supposed to be quite comfortable with temperatures heading over 70º, so I assume I will be busy continuing to prep the garden and begin planting some of my cold crops, including the broccoli, onions, cabbage, and collards. I bought about 10 lbs. of seed potatoes (Eva, Yukon Gold, Norland Red and one other). I will give them a couple more weeks before I put them into the ground.