It’s official: 2019-20 has been the wettest winter in Alabama’s recorded history. Our region got around 27 inches, with over 12 inches in February alone. It’s pretty tough for Eric and the students to work in those conditions, even so, they finished the new beds and got them all planted out with food and cover crops.
On rainy days, however, there is still plenty to work on in the seed house and the greenhouse. Despite all the cold and rain, this week really felt like the beginning of spring, as students have started some warm-season crops. They transplanted tomatoes and cherry tomatoes, which were started in the seed house in mid-January, into the greenhouse right around March 1. As they grow, the students will prune and train these tomatoes to grow on string lines suspended from the greenhouse.
They also began some cucumber and zucchini seeds to be transplanted into the greenhouse (statistically, there is likely to be another freeze, so the field will need to wait). Like the tomatoes, the cucumbers will grow vertically, so students suspended a trellis for the vines to climb up.
