Planting in early March

Planting in early March is not something I've ever done before.  Outside that is.  I've done plenty of inside planting at this time of year.  Many years we still have snow on the ground, or still have snow coming.  The local saying is to plant peas on St Patrick's day.  Most years, that just isn't possible. 

This year is a little different.  We've had a mild winter, hardly any snow and what is starting to look like an early warm up.  Then you factor in hoop houses.  If you've read my blog for any length of time, you'll know that I've wanted hoops for a while.  I even made a really bad attempt at them 2 years ago.  However, this past fall, I finally raised the beds on my interior garden.  They were intentionally made of wood, so that hoops could be installed. 

Yesterday, I finally got Hubby to help me set 2 of them up.  I'm so excited, that I could just sit and look at them all day.  It's warm today and predicted to hit close to 60.  The wind is crazy though.  I ended up needing more clamps and couldn't find them at my usual place.  I had to take the plastic off one, so that I could use double the clamps on the other.  Even with those, it's still having a hard time taking all the wind.  Since it is so warm and sunny today, I'm not terribly worried.  Johnny's had some great clips that are now on their way to me.

It was quite amazing how warm the soil got with only a few hours of coverage.  This morning, I turned over the beds and planted a few things.  Bright lights chard, mizuna, mache, spinach and lettuce mix.  This is all a bit of an experiment right now.  If they do anything in the next week or so, I'll plant more.  When the new clamps come in, the second hoop house will become a nursery for the cooler weather plants in the basement.