Winter on Whidbey

January is set to go down on the books as the warmest on record. The average temperature last year for the month of January was about 38 degrees F., this year we are averaging about 48 F. Right now it's 34 F out at 5:30 am. Should have a little frost this morning.

This last December was real cold for us, with 10 days in the teens and snow on the ground the complete time. We harvested lettuce and other hardy greens right up to Christmas but even with row covers everything turned to mush, with the exception of lettuce growing in our heated "cold frames".

I built the cold frames out of scrap lumber and put them on some old saw horses I had left over from building our house. The idea was to get them up off the ground to make it easier on my back and also keep slugs out of our new plants. I used a ridged plastic for the light and made the box large enough to hold 8 flats of 4" pots. We have two setups located near the barn but away from our animals. In one of the cold frames we have heating pads, which keep the roots warm in the spring. The mats use very little electricity (I have not noticed a difference in our electric bill with or without the mats connected) but have kept things alive even when we drop into the teens. We currently have one heated cold frame (hot frame) planted in lettuce and spinach growing in 1 gallon pots.

In the picture here you will see some sweet and hot peppers growing in one gallon pots. They are plants I never got around to planting and they did very well growing in this warm area.

We use the cold frames throughout the growing season. The first advantage of starting vegetables in flats is a substantial savings of water used. A flat of seedlings raised until transplanting size need only ½ gallon per day – usually enough to plant 100 sq feet of garden vs. about 10 to 20 gallons per day for direct seeded plants. The water savings in one month (compared with direct sowing of seeds in the growing area) is about 285 to 585 gallons per 100 sq feet of growing space. Secondly, full sized transplants are available to be planted as soon as the space is available, keeping the growing beds more productive. Thirdly, direct seeded areas are often subject to bird and rodent damage. The only direct seeding we do is a spring and fall crop of micro greens and carrots. All other vegetables and fruits are started in flats, including corn, sweet peas and pole beans.

We received our shipment of seeds last week and I started a flat of onions. For the past two years we have used High Mowing Organic Seeds out of Vermont. I'm not crazy about using a non-local seed company but they are 100% organic (very important to us) and we loved the quality of their seeds. Their prices are high but if you pre-pay before the end of the year you receive a 10% discount.

We use two or three onions a week so I try to grow enough for a year supply. In the past years we have used Copra for our yellow storage onions. This year we are using Cortland, which is considered an improvement over the Copra (and developed by the same folks as Copra). The Copra grew to a medium size onion, very dense and stored very well.

For a red onion we used Red Baron last year. I think we might have planted them a little too close as we had mixed results as to their size. They have kept very well so far. I also started a package of evergreen hardy non-bulbing scallion-like bunching onion. It's fun to experiment. I planted the onion seeds in 4 inch pots - many seeds to a pot - and when they get about 5 inches tall I'll cut them back to 1 inch, which will increase the girth.

This year we will again grow Walla Walla Sweets. I start them in July and put them in the ground in the fall. They are very cold hardy and this will give them a fast start come spring. We'll harvest them early summer. The Walla Walla is a large sweet onion with a very white flesh, great fresh but not a keeper.