Welcome to East TX where the range of temperatures in January so far has been, no joke, from 17 degrees to 80.4F.
Carrots, peas, radishes, beets, spinach, lettuce, and arugula went in the ground today ahead of our cold snap. 🙌 I thought this would be a great time to talk about GROUND TEMPERATURES! Because they're important. A few days of 70 degree weather will not make the ground warm enough to sprout warm season crops. And ground temperature is just as, if not more than, important than the surrounding air temperature to get your crops off to a good start.
🌱 Seeds sprout (germinate) at specific GROUND temperatures. That's not the temp above the ground, it's the actual temperature of the soil.
🌱 ALL of the above mentioned SPROUT best between 45 - 68F. These are cool weather crops. BUT they GROW well at temperatures between 15 degrees and 70 degrees. None of these crops like our hot and humid summers. In fact most of the leafy greens taste quite bitter if it's too warm.
🌱 today my ground temperature 2 inches down without the black fabric cloth was around 52F. Under the black fabric it was 58 at 11am and 4pm. While the actual outdoor temperature fluctuated from 21 to 64 today. The black cloth heats the soil some. We're going to leave the cloth in place for about a week just to give the seeds some time to sprout as they don't need sun until they sprout above ground. Note that the soil will often heat up faster in raised beds.
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