Oberon and Jim - direct sowing in fall/winter for the next year - I'm curious to hear how these turn out come spring.

Good news with all your lights, Mary. I like your "chattiness".

>> both rolling shelves were totally redone with ballasts and lights,

>> They were AFI and constantly blew the breaker.
>> Each spring he said, oh I can fix that.

>> now I can just open the kitchen door into the garage and flip two switches in the wall and "LET THERE BE LIGHT." Both carts with 8 sets of 4 fluorescents plus four sets hanging from the ceiling on chains - all at once.

I'm super-envious of all your lights, Mary Stella. They sound great! T-8? Skinny T-5? Old, wide T-12? Four tubes per fixture sound like T-12s, or else you have BRIGHT light for seedlings!

I'm glad all is well, and you're back.

RickCorey:
USA Hardiness Zone 3a are zone 8/9 mountain here I think.
And global warming are affecting the climate here to.
ElNino are a good little helper in the part of Norway I'm original from. We can grow apples there if we protect it tru the winter

Shadegardener:
I wish I was living where I could grow all year around :-)
I hope to be able too plant out in May, in my greenhouse.
Peas and salads in the beginning of June.
Will need extra heat in the greenhouse and extra protection for the raised beds.

dyzzypyxxy:
I will show you my little ones when they pop up ;-)
Tomatoes and cucumbers I think I can wait 1-2-3 months before I start🍅

pirl said:Welcome to ATP, Saneline! You are dedicated to shovel your way to get the lights to raise the seeds!

Thanks 😄
Dedicated sounds better than crazy plant lady don't you think 😂😂

Thanks Weedwhacker 😄
Well, -40c isn't really normal here. Has been a strange spring/summer/autumn 2015. Cold, wet, every thing late.
But now it's a new year with new challenges 💪🏻
I built a greenhouse aka tunnel last summer. I hope to put my plants in sometimes in May. First year growing peppers an now was the time I was told to start those.

drdawg said:Good news with all your lights, Mary. I like your "chattiness".

Yay for the new and improved light setup, Mary -- and I hope all goes well with your husband's surgery!

Sanneline -- we had a very cool summer last year, but fortunately the autumn lasted a long time (we didn't have any snow until the end of December). Your tunnel looks similar to mine, now that I look more closely at your photo...



I'm going to try to get some tomatoes going in it around the middle of April this year; I don't plant them in the open garden until the beginning of June, but I'm hoping that by planting them in the tunnel, with large clear plastic bags over the tomato cages, I can get some earlier tomatoes!

Right now this is all that's going on in my garden... it looks like winter storm Kayla has arrived!

Sanneline - will you be growing all of your vegetables in the tunnel? I did try tomatoes one year in big buckets in my little GH but it got too hot in there for them. It sounds like you should have great luck though in your colder zone.

Shadegardene - I will grow peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers and some other warm loving plants in the tunnel (plan is to make one more this spring)(what's a GB?)
I have sun all day at my tunnel but as I live where I live it seldom gets too hot ☃ hihi...
Salads, peas, carrots and maby something more will go in the raised beds.

Weed whacked:
Bad summer, no snow before November, but I had fresh tomatoes till late October 😁 Had to let them rip inside but better than store bought 😇
We're waiting a really cold period now in February but then it's time 😍

"Better than store bought"

Oh boy, no kidding! No tomatoes at all is pretty much better than store bought around here in the winter ...

Mary Stella, I'm picturing you sitting in a lawn chair in your "sunny" garage now that the lights are fixed. I'm originally from BC and even the short days there in winter used to depress me a lot. Thinking about growing and lots of light helps. Hope the surgery goes well for your husband.

I just came in from the garden with a small handful of yellow pear and red grape tomatoes but the plants are looking very sad - some blight or other is slowly killing them off. Guess I'll have to re-plant the Earth Boxes for a spring crop. Have to rub it in a little bit, because you all know we suffer with store-bought tomatoes or nothing in the summer here.

Sanneline - GH is greenhouse. It's just a small one - 6 ft by 10 ft - but I do heat it in the winter because I keep plants over winter in there.

Wow, Anne-Line, apples in Sweden? Even with some protection, that is impressive!

I totally believe that "-40" must NOT be usual!

LOL, Rick -- -40 must be more common there than where I am, because we do have the occasional occurrence of that temp and apples don't need protection here...

OK, I know as little about apples as I do about Swedish climate.

That is entirely likely!

I have my brassicas started and will plan on planting out the end of the month. I planted my peppers and a couple of tomatoes but the bulk of the tomatoes will be planted this week. I will plant extra to sell at market and for our garden club.

More rain here. Ira dug a trench and filled with gravel so we are hoping the washout problem is over. This rain may tell.

Yesterday was high 70s and I was stuck inside! But the day before I got my front flower bed weeded. This year I intend to intersperse veggies in it. Especially ones I would like to isolate and save seeds from. That's the plan right now anyway.

David is busy making paper pots for potting up all the seedlings I have started. Usually we pot up the lettuce but I planted so much this year I think we'll go straight to the garden bed and earlier, with row cover. I really don't have the space to hold them until March and I think they'll be okay under cover in a few weeks. I have a roll of extra heavy row cover I can use.