My first bed planted

I've started growing cool-season vegetables under a low tunnel as of last week. This was my first version, but I made it lower when I saw how it behaved in the wind.

There are lettuce starts and lettuce seeds, spinach starts and spinach seeds, mache starts and radish seeds, and pea seeds in there. The idea of the low tunnel is that you get a greenhouse effect for a fraction of the price, and so if there's another cold snap, the plants will be fine. The hoops are just PVC, and the plastic is a big piece I bought to cover my back door to keep the cold winter air out. With the clamps, the whole thing cost less than $25. I should be able to keep things alive November through April next year with this system as well, and therefore have my own greens and carrots to harvest all winter long. Or so they claim! I'll have to see if it works as promised.

If it does work, and if all my winter squash works out, I might be able to be vegetable self-sufficient (what with canning and freezing) year-round. And in a few years, fruit self-sufficient too.

This planting and another area planted with onions and leeks cleared out one shelf of my greenhouse window in the kitchen so I can up-pot the annual flowers that are outgrowing their starting cells and move them there, and I will start tomatoes under the grow lights tomorrow. It's quite the juggling act to do all I want to with with a single grow light! But I'm managing, and I heard a clever trick recently that I may use next year: leave the grow lights on all the time, and rotate plants in and out every 12 hours, so you have some plants believing that day is night as they get going in life. That way, you can get away with half the grow lights and shelf space. Smart idea!

A few days later, I ordered in 2 cubic yards of compost. It was wet and weighed two tons. Here's two tons of compost at quarter til 9 in the morning:

And here's that spot in the driveway at 3:30 the same day.

Not bad for a woman in her mid-sixties, is it? :D