So here we are, back in my beloved New England. More specifically in Maine, where I have always hoped to end up. Jasper turns out to be a snow lover, thank goodness.
But I get so impatient. December, January...staring out the window, knowing it’s not time, even for starting seeds indoors for most cold-hardy crops.
Just ask Our Lady of the Compost Bin.
I ought to have accepted this by now. I've lived almost all of my life here. And as a gardener, I have spent years fine-tuning geekily detailed seed lists and crop calendars that tell me so.
Thank goodness for artichokes! It is totally rational to start artichoke seeds indoors in early February (or even late January, if I simply can’t wait any longer). Also geraniums! And not too long after that, certain salvias. And then we're off and running!
I get in trouble if I try to check my seedlings' overnight progress before the dogs' breakfast is prepared each morning...but it's hard to resist.
The artichokes are started this early because they are destined to be duped by the extra heat and light I provide into thinking they’ve already had a summer season by about mid-March.
Then it’s out to the cold frame – open, unless we get a hard freeze – for their first and very abbreviated “winter.”
Below is an example of one of the many false "spring" days Mother Nature likes to grant us in, say, early April...only to laugh her head off with a Nor'easter the following week.
Come early May, the young and possibly confused artichokes will be unrecognizably large, rather spiny, and off to their final home in the outside beds, with soil warmed to their liking. This is one of the few times I use plastic groundcover, specifically IRT mulch which I get from FEDCO. In addition to my love of cold-season veg, I fell in love with growing heat-loving crops like artichokes and sweet potatoes in TN. Every few degrees helps here.
All of this is to convince my little friends to produce chokes in what is actually still their first season. Though please don’t tell them this.
It’s a project – but I love them so. And their 12-week startup routine helps to maintain my late-winter sanity, so it’s a win-win.
(Another way for a gardener to keep from going bonkers before their final frost date is winter sowing, which I talk more about in this post.)
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