a sunny day of garden work

What a difference a day makes. We had a lot of sun today and it warmed the midday temperatures to the upper 40s. Skippy and I did several hours of gardening (for Skippy that means sleeping in the sun). I removed some 10 yr old raspberry plants (that didn't produce much for the last few years) from my first raised bed and prepared the soil for planting peas and lettuce seed. I didn't get the seeds planted today, but I will very soon. The black plastic mulched bed (bed numer two) was nice and warm to the touch in the sunlight today. I think this will work well for beans in a few weeks.

I did come across a nice chart with soil temperatures for planting differnet crops:

Here are some temperatures for different crops:

# Soil 40 degrees F: Plant endive, lettuce and pea seed.

# Soil 45 degrees F: Plant carrot, radish and spinach seed. Set out cabbage transplants, potato starts and onion sets.

# Soil 50 degrees F: Plant beet, parsley, parsnip and Swiss chard seed.

# Soil 60 degrees F: Plant snap bean, sweet corn, cucumber and turnip seed. Set out tomato seedlings.

# Soil 65 degrees F: Plant lima bean seed.

# Soil 70 degrees F: Plant okra, southern peas, squash, pumpkin and watermelon seed. Set out eggplant and pepper transplants.

# Soil 75 degrees F: Plant cantalope seed. Set out sweet potatoes.
I got this chart from here