March 10, 2026
Prepping the garden and hardening the seedlings
As temperatures soared over 83º today, I spent the morning walking 5 miles with my brother up at Lum's State Park. It was quiet, snow all gone and only a few other individuals making use of this beauitful state park.
After lunch and a nap, I took out the big tiller and worked on the area I will use to grow broccoli, collards and lettuce. I also tilled the area where I will plant peas and finally, I cleared the area where potatoes will be planted.
In a few days, the weather will go back to normal with lows in the 30's and there is a possibility of temperatures even hitting the 20's next week. I am uncertain as to well to put the seedlngs into the ground, but I will keep a careful eye on the weather.
I went to Lowe's in Middletown, as their site indicated they had some cow manure and soil mix. It was posted at $1.98, the same price it has been for about 7 years. This stuff is ok, nothing special coming from Georgia. It has some wood chips in it and a little cow manure. However, when I went to get 5 bags, I saw the price was marked at $4.89, more than double of that listed on the web page. It took well over a half an hour to get this all fixed, where I paid the $1.98 price, but I doubt I am going back to any time soon.
Tomorrow will be the last day of nice, warm weather and I will fill in the raised bed boxes and prep them for the onions and lettuce. I also want to rearrange some landscape stones into a fireplace, so I can bun last falls tree cuttings.
I haven't decided if I want to get some bulk (10 yards) mushroom soil, as I am not anxious to move 75-90 wheelbarrows of the stuff from the driveway dropoff to the back yard.
Time will tell.
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.
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Walking Log
I started keeping track of my daily walking miles since May 2, 2021. The spreadsheet provides a list of the miles by week, month and year.Daily Updates:
03-11-2026
John B. Lindale house, “peach baron” of Magnolia, Delaware. The farmhouse is of a Victorian design built in 1886. Magnolia is called the “Center of the Universe”.
