A Little Help from Plastic and Glass

As a planting guide, I tend to follow this planting chart from West Coast Seeds. I was adding a few weeks to the chart to compensate for the cooler temperatures out here but this year I've decided to try sticking closer to the chart, with some help from plastic and glass. We don't have the same warm temperatures as Vancouver and area, but I think that the extreme levels of rain we get can actually do more to inhibit the early spring growth. Seeds just get too wet and the soil super-saturated. So, in combination with trying to raise my soil levels even higher, I've started seeds in my little greenhouse and under plastic tunnels. This is how it's going:



This is a snazzy little cold frame/greenhouse my parents gave me as a birthday gift years ago. We built a garden box the exact size so when it is getting too warm for whatever is inside, we can just lift it off. Right now, I have fava beans, peas and spinach seeded in the greenhouse. On sunny days, I open it up so it doesn't get too warm, but this does help to keep it a little warmer (and dryer) at night. Once things have sprouted, I'll move the frame as these are crops that don't mind some cool weather.



I also rigged up these little tunnels. Before I planted I also added a few inches of soil to these beds as it is a pretty wet area of my yard (the entire neighbourhood drains into our yard — it really aspires to be a swamp and probably was one once). I built the cloche using wire frames (from Lee Valley I believe), old poly we had left over from some painting work, and clothespins. Underneath went fava and peas. This is how it's going:



Again, once the weather warms up a titch and dries out, I'll remove the cover.

As I was trolling the Internet looking for web sites and blogs that specifically talked about gardening in the particular conditions of the wet coast (I didn't find much; thus this blog!), I did find the site Heavy Petal and her post on a square foot garden she just put in. I was curious how planting some of these seeds out here would work in comparison to Vancouver, so I set up a similar garden with one change:



I added an old window I had kicking around, again as much to limit how wet the soil gets as to warm up the temperature slightly. I've seeded spinach, radishes, corn salad, arugula, and a few others that have slipped my mind. I'll let you know how it goes!