Northern Zone Pushers: watcha doing?

[bower]

Sharon,
I'm hoping to be planted out in the greenhouse within the next week. We are about two weeks behind this spring, temperature wise. And besides that, we're having a bumper crop of icebergs this spring. The wind off the water when it's full of ice is so cold. The greenhouse will be warm enough if we get a little sunshine, but I'll probably need to cover the plants at night. Not happy to see forecast lows of -3 and -5 C in the next couple of nights. As for outdoors, I'll just keep watching the temperatures.. in June.

My Azoychka plants are pretty small as yet, compared to the others. I hope the fruit are good.

[jmsieglaff]

My tomatoes and peppers moved to the cold frame on Saturday. They had been enjoying their stay, but today were cursing at me and demanding to go back in the house. I kindly told them to settle down. The temp didn't get out of the 40s today and with thick clouds the cold frame peaked at 53F--compared to yesterday with thinner clouds and low 50s outside, it still got into the 70sF. But in all seriousness, they look just fine. I use black spray painted milk jugs with water to keep the temps up at night, which works well, when there is sunshine, which isn't looking good for the majority of the week. So tonight they'll get spend a night in the 40s. Every year I worry about them, but every year they end up just fine.

[Father'sDaughter]

Thursday looks like it might be the day to move the tomatoes out to the mini greenhouse--day time temps are supposed to stay up in the 60's and nighttime lows in the mid 40's. If zipped up early enough, the little greenhouse usually stays at least five degrees warmer than the outside air. And with the warmer outside temps, our furnace isn't running as often and the basement has been a lot chillier, so they should be used to lower temps already!

While I'm still several weeks away from plant out, they have run out of headroom under the lights.

[HydroExplorer]

I got some good tips in this thread. I never heard of water walls before.

As for zone pushing. I put some of my extra plants out real early. They died. I put some other extra plants out a little less early and they also died.

I put out some more after that and so far they're alive. Some of the less cold-hearty ones (basil) will probably die but I don't have anywhere else to put them so out they went.

I'm thinking about putting out a dwc tomato plant soon but haven't yet.

I wanted to build a walipini in the yard so I could grow stuff outdoors year round but my wife was really against the idea.

[Lindalana]

Weather reported stable for the next 10 days. Set up rest of my WOW yesterday, today tomatoes will go in.

[disneynut1977]

The only things I have put out so far are my hubbys Hop rhizomes. All my tomatoes r still inside under lights. I'm hoping after next week I can start bringing them outside.

[Father'sDaughter]

Originally Posted by disneynut1977

The only things I have put out so far are my hubbys Hop rhizomes. All my tomatoes r still inside under lights. I'm hoping after next week I can start bringing them outside.

Have you grown hops before? Every time our local home brew store offers the rhizomes for sale, I'm tempted to buy some and give them a try. I've never really looked into how much space they need or how much you would need to grow to brew a few batches of beer.

[taboule]

A couple of weeks ago, high temps hit the 70s here, so I planted numerous brassicas and greens, and took out many tomatoes on the porch for hardening. I also planted in containers a bunch of bushsteaks (dwarf).That was on a sunday, come Wed, we woke up to over one inch of snow and ice. Luckily, i had brought the container toms inside for the night. Many of the greens outside froze to death.

Since then it's been a shuttle back and forth depending on whether I had time. Some of the older maters were beginning to look tired, having been under the lights since early march. Then yesterday I saw a flower on one of the black krims (second pic below). Also, it felt a slight warming trend was coming, and some of the garden was prepped and ready, so I planted my first 6 tomatoes, 30 april 2014.

[taboule]

In here are the BK, a Sandul Moldovan, and Gregoris Altai -I call this the Russian corner.

Pic 2 is a Greek Thessaloniki, then pic 3 is a Striped Sweetheart (thanks Marsha.) The Greek is short and stubby, 4x wider than tall. Also in the ground is a Bloody Butcher.

I know I'm a bit early, but have nothing to lose and lots to gain. I have many more plants than I have room for, if these dont look good after a couple weeks while I plant new ones, I will replace them. Better to use them now than have a large surplus sitting in cups in June.

[disneynut1977]

Originally Posted by Father'sDaughter

Have you grown hops before? Every time our local home brew store offers the rhizomes for sale, I'm tempted to buy some and give them a try. I've never really looked into how much space they need or how much you would need to grow to brew a few batches of beer.

No this is our first year. My hubby has been brewing his own beer for years, always had to buy his hop flowers though. I had 3 extra earthboxs I could spare so I told him to finally order some to try out; he ordered 6; 3 sentenials and 3 cascade.
I did a little research in SWC for how hops faired. It didn't look too bad but I will probally buy each rhizome its own bucket for next year. Cut the bottom of the bucket off sink it in the ground so we can mow or use a weedeater right next to it and the roots can expand into the ground.
This year I'm just keeping them alive and trying to get them to grow a good root system. We haven't decided on what to do for a support yet. I've been doing a lot of browsing on the net for ideas.

I think a few years down the road they will be enough; he only does 5 gallon at a time when he brews since it's just us drinking it.

[joseph]

Last week I erected a harbor freight greenhouse. A couple days ago I moved the tomatoes from the basement into the greenhouse, and started more. It's about 5 weeks still before I can plant tomatoes outside. I would have preferred 6 week old plants, but woo hoo! finally got the greenhouse operational.

[Labradors2]

I have two vines of Mount Hood. Growing them in containers didn't really work well for me because they were far enough away that I kept forgetting to water them, so I planted them in full sun on our fence (which is a farm fence of cedar posts and wire squares). They do really well, and last year I had TONS of hop flowers and I think I'd have had more than enough to brew some beer!

Mine are 4 or 5 years old, and it seems a pity that I only use them for making herb tea!

Linda

[disneynut1977]

Originally Posted by Labradors2

I have two vines of Mount Hood. Growing them in containers didn't really work well for me because they were far enough away that I kept forgetting to water them, so I planted them in full sun on our fence (which is a farm fence of cedar posts and wire squares). They do really well, and last year I had TONS of hop flowers and I think I'd have had more than enough to brew some beer!

Mine are 4 or 5 years old, and it seems a pity that I only use them for making herb tea!

Linda

Really. thanks for posting Linda. I take it Mount Hood does well for you? I wanted to start with 3 varieties this year, but we ordered too late and they were out of alot, so we ended up with the Cascade and centennial. We also have a fence my husband built last summer. 5ft high double shadow box thick 1" rough cut boards; full sun and I don't have anything against it. We r cleaning and staining it as soon as it stops raining I wonder if I attached that black deer netting/fencing if I could train these along the fence? It runs for about 50ft before it hits shade. My hubbys worried he might not have enough flowers for his beer. I really wonder what we r gonna get in production a few years from now with the 6 plants

Also what herb tea do you make with the hops?

[jmsieglaff]

Originally Posted by disneynut1977

No this is our first year. My hubby has been brewing his own beer for years, always had to buy his hop flowers though. I had 3 extra earthboxs I could spare so I told him to finally order some to try out; he ordered 6; 3 sentenials and 3 cascade.
I did a little research in SWC for how hops faired. It didn't look too bad but I will probally buy each rhizome its own bucket for next year. Cut the bottom of the bucket off sink it in the ground so we can mow or use a weedeater right next to it and the roots can expand into the ground.
This year I'm just keeping them alive and trying to get them to grow a good root system. We haven't decided on what to do for a support yet. I've been doing a lot of browsing on the net for ideas.

I think a few years down the road they will be enough; he only does 5 gallon at a time when he brews since it's just us drinking it.

My $0.02 on hop growing. They will really need a permanent location if you want decent yields--so your plan to 'keep them alive' this year and then next year putting them in something that will have access to the ground is a good idea.

Don't go cheap or small on your supports. The amount of vines will be small the first few years and by year 3, 4, and 5 you'll have a lot of vegetative mater that will need strong, tall supports that can withstand summer-time thunderstorm winds.

Hops are tremendous feeders of N and mainly in a short time-window--from emergence to flowering or ~late April to early July. You don't want to give them a lot of N after they started flowering--so use quick release N when feeding them. Not kidding at the peak of growth in June with good access to N and enough water the vines can grow as much as 10-12" in a day.

A friend and I grew Cascasde at his old place and now are growing Centennial and Columbus at this new place.

[Labradors2]

I've heard that all three varieties do well around here. Someone was offering the Mt. Hood rhizomes so I accepted them! My vines grow up and along the top of the fence so I have a mass of vines in a bundle and I simply wind any that are waving in the breeze back into the bundle, so you probably don't need to adapt your fence except maybe to put some nails in the top to attach some horizontal strings.

I should think you'd be overrun with hops if all 6 of your vines live {LOL}.

Herb tea is easy. Grab 4 hops, put in a cup, pour (not quite) boiling water on them and time for 3 minutes before removing them from your cup. If you like the taste of warm beer you'll be all set but it does help me to sleep.....

Linda

Originally Posted by disneynut1977

Really. thanks for posting Linda. I take it Mount Hood does well for you? I wanted to start with 3 varieties this year, but we ordered too late and they were out of alot, so we ended up with the Cascade and centennial. We also have a fence my husband built last summer. 5ft high double shadow box thick 1" rough cut boards; full sun and I don't have anything against it. We r cleaning and staining it as soon as it stops raining I wonder if I attached that black deer netting/fencing if I could train these along the fence? It runs for about 50ft before it hits shade. My hubbys worried he might not have enough flowers for his beer. I really wonder what we r gonna get in production a few years from now with the 6 plants

Also what herb tea do you make with the hops?