SALAD FROM MEXICO?!!

Something weird just happened last night when we went out to dinner.  Actually, we were on our way home from the airport, having just gotten in from sunny, WARM Nassau (more on that later).  It was late and we decided to have dinner at the Macaroni Grill on Route 1 in New Jersey (the Garden State).  So, in an effort to eat healthy, I ordered a salad and was told that they didn’t have salad because there had been a cold front in Mexico.   Mexico???!!!  Does this sound weird to anybody? I mean, really, why do we have to buy our greens from another country?  Why doesn’t the Macaroni Grill buy its greens from local suppliers?  My hoophouses are filled with greens, and you know, if I can do it, so can the area farmers.   With fuel prices rising, wouldn’t it make sense to buy local produce?  Maybe it’s because the Macaroni Grill is a chain (which is why we usually don’t eat at chains) or maybe because the goods from Mexico are cheaper even when you factor in the rising fuel prices.  Could be all of the above.  Anyway, I had to eat pasta instead of a nice leafy salad.  A salad would have been better.


So, about our vacation in Nassau.  We honeymooned in Nassau 40 years ago, and decided to go back to the scene of the crime for our anniversary.  Of course, so much had changed since 1971, but the beautiful azure blue water was still as clear and brilliant as ever.   The blooming flowers fell over walls and climbed up to the housetops.  I didn’t see any agriculture but was told that indeed there are farms, which provide produce to the natives and the tourists.  We gambled a little on Paradise Island, hung out on the beach and tried not to get sunburned, ate lots of seafood, walked for miles trying to see the ‘real’ Nassau, swam with the dolphins and was happy not to be in Pennsylvania where they were getting ice and snow.  Actually, it was hard to come back to the colder weather, but when we got home I noticed that the daffodils were actually blooming and the irises in the fish pond were starting to grow, which is a sure sign of the approaching spring.  The forsythia is on the verge of blooming and I think that after we get through this cold week, spring will be here.  I hope so, otherwise, I might just head back to the Caribbean!   While we were away, my son John took care of my vegetables on the windowsill, making sure to water them and turn them toward the sun.  He did a good job and not only did they survive, but they thrived.  The tomato plants are quickly outgrowing their space, and hopefully will be transplanted into the hoophouse in a week or two, weather permitting.  I put the tomato and pepper plants into bigger pots and even sowed some impatience seeds and put them on the heat mat to germinate.  Everything that is inside is doing well, and I am pleased with the success of my new growing rack that Ron made for me.  It's a good design as it is very flexible.  The hoophouses are bursting with greens, some newly seeded and some wintered over.  We'll be eating salad from here on out - and NOT from Mexico!

GROWING TIMELINE AS OF MAR. 16, 2011

WINDOWSILL:  Cherry tomatoes (si 2/1), Roma tomatoes (si 2/1), Beefsteak tomatoes (si 2/1), Broccoli (si 2/1), Swiss Chard (si 2/6), Peppers (si 2/8), more tomatoes (si 2/14), spinach (si 2/14), Marigolds (si 3/1)

HOOPHOUSE:  Swiss Chard (wo hh), Chinese Cabbage (wo hh), Spinach (wo hh), Lettuce (wo hh), Mesclun (wo hh), Lettuce ds hh 2/6), Mesclun (ds hh 2/6), Lettuce (ds hh 2/17), Mesclun (ds hh 2/17), Broccoli (T hh 3/1), Swiss Chard (T hh 3/1), Peas (ds hh 3/16), Chinese Cabbage (H 3/16)

GARDEN:  garlic (wo), parsnips (H 3/1), peas (ds 3/16)

si = sown inside
ds = directly sown
wo = wintered over
hh = hoophouse
fc = fall crop
H = harvested
T = transplanted
B = bolted

MORE SNOW???

Not really.  Well, not here in Eastern PA.  But I spent the week up at my daughter’s house in the Berkshires in Western Massachusetts and there was 1 ½’ of snow there.  Ugh!  Enough already!  It is cold, snowy and muddy there and it was hard not to long for the early spring days back at home.  When I drove down our driveway I noticed that the daffodils were up and budding and the forsythia had small yellow buds up and down its branches.   The hoophouses are full of greens and we are
once again eating delicious salads from the garden.  Last night I made a lettuce, mesclun and
spinach salad that had that intense flavor that only comes from the winter-overed greens.   The Swiss chard and broccoli that I transplanted into the hoophouse doesn’t seem to be doing well and I may just direct seed into the garden.  I should have done that to begin with, having learned that lesson from the year before.  The lettuce that I sowed on February 17 is now blanketing the soil in
the hoophouse.  These new greens will take us into the summer.  My tomato plants (si 2/1)  that are on the window sill are about 1’ tall and doing well.  Only thing is, they are almost touching the grow light bulb and I need to reconfigure something to give them a little more head room.  I have trays of all kinds of tomato plants – some for me and the rest to friend’s gardens.  Any time they come to visit, they check out the tomato plant’s progress.  Seems like everybody is getting anxious to plant!    

GROWING TIMELINE AS OF MAR 5, 2011

WINDOWSILL:  Cherry tomatoes (si 2/1), Roma tomatoes (si 2/1), Beefsteak tomatoes (si 2/1), Broccoli (si 2/1), Swiss Chard (si 2/6), Peppers (si 2/8), more tomatoes (si 2/14), spinach (si 2/14), Marigolds (si 3/1)

HOOPHOUSE:  Swiss Chard (wo hh), Chinese Cabbage (wo hh), Spinach (wo hh), Lettuce (wo hh), Mesclun (wo hh), Lettuce ds hh 2/6), Mesclun (ds hh 2/6), Lettuce (ds hh 2/17), Mesclun (ds hh 2/17), Broccoli (T hh 3/1), Swiss Chard (T hh 3/1)

GARDEN:  garlic (wo), parsnips (H 3/1)

si = sown inside
ds = directly sown
wo = wintered over
hh = hoophouse
fc = fall crop
H = harvested
T = transplanted

WILD RED RASPBERRY WINE

Early last summer, the wild red raspberries were ripe, waiting for the birds, I guess. But since my son John makes his own wine, I picked 8 lbs. of those little tart fruits, braving stickers, ticks and the heat. I was the picker, and John was the vintner. So after many months of fermenting and transfering from bottle to bottle, the clear red wine is ready for our first taste, which will be on Easter (also happens to be my birthday). The kids will all be home and we will cap off a great dinner with a wine tasting party. I made labels using our childhood nicknames. While transferring the liquid to the last bottle, we did a preliminary tasting and all agreed that it was a very 'fine wine.' So now when I am passing by the wild raspberry bushes at the edge of the woods I think of them as an unexpected bonus rather than a blight, and look forward to our second annual harvest this summer.

LATE PARSNIPS -- OR ARE THEY EARLY?

Spent the afternoon outside picking up branches brought down by the wind storm that we had the other day. Not only did I have a few wheel barrels full of sticks, but three huge poplars blew down too. They fell very loudly as the roots pulled up and the trees crashed down. Thankfully they were back in the woods and not a danger to anyone or anything. We'll have tons of firewood to cut and stack next fall. I also turned two more beds, trying to kill off the winter rye. I found some more parsnips that wintered over and will be great for a soup or stew. I shoveled in leaves and compost so that the beds are ready for planting in a few weeks. The garden is looking good and seems to be responding to the longer days and warmer sun. At last! The lettuce that was just seeded in the hoophouse is popping up and blanketing the soil. I transplanted some of the broccoli and Swiss chard seedlings that were started in the house. They had a good root system and should do well under cover. The hybrid tomato seeds that I was given are coming up but seem very spindly, so I sowed more cherry tomatoes, since that is the kind of tomato everybody wants. I also sowed marigold seeds to be planted im the vegetable garden and for some color up by the mail boxes. I noticed today that the compost bin is starting to cook, which is perfect since I've already started to shovel some into the garden. I might be jumping the gun with transplanting the Swiss chard snd broccoli into the hoophouse, but really, it all depends on the weather and the continuing trend of 40+ degree days. Today when I unzipped the hoophouse, it was actually 92 degrees in there! The soil is still in the 60s and perfect for cold weather crops, I never worry about the night time temps, mainly because I'm not about to go out there with a flashlight in the middle of the night. I guess I could buy one of those thermometers that give you the highest and lowest readings, but really, I'm OC enough about all of this!

GROWING TIMELINE AS OF FEB. 22, 2011

WINDOWSILL: Cherry tomatoes (si 2/1), Roma tomatoes (si 2/1), Beefsteak tomatoes (si 2/1), Broccoli (si 2/1), Swiss Chard (si 2/6), Peppers (si 2/8), more tomatoes (si 2/14), spinach (si 2/14)

HOOPHOUSE: Swiss Chard (wo hh), Chinese Cabbage (wo hh), Spinach (wo hh), Lettuce (wo hh), Mesclun (wo hh), Lettuce ds hh 2/6), Mesclun (ds hh 2/6), Lettuce (ds hh 2/17), Mesclun (ds hh 2/17)

GARDEN: garlic (wo), parsnips (wo

si = sown inside
ds = directly sown
wo = wintered over
hh = hoophouse
fc = fall crop

WHAT IS SHE GROWING IN THERE?

My neighbors saw the grow light in the window the other night and wondered if I was into some kind of illegal activity. Nope, just growing tomatoes, said I. I keep the grow light on from 5 p.m. to midnight and the seedlings are in the sunshine by the window most of the day. All of the seedlings are doing great and the tomatoes are starting to look like real tomato plants. A couple times a day I ruffle the tomato plants so that they develop strong stems.   I noticed a big difference in just a few days. The other day I transplanted all of the 2/1 tomatoes into larger trays. That should do it for them until they go into a big pot and are put out in the hoophouse. The peppers are growing slowly and are not as showy as the other seedlings. Maybe they need to sit on the heat mat for a while. The Swiss Chard and broccoli are growing and should be ready for the hoophouse as soon as it warms up a bit out there. The weather is definitely warming up if you track the temperatures, but the locals keep complaining about the long, cold winter. Almost feels like spring to me! Most of the daytime temps will be in the 40s this week. That being said, we got 2" of snow last night and another 2" the night before, but it is melting quickly. The creek has been running pretty good with all the run-off. We had a lull in the weather and much of the snow had melted so I felt it was time to deal with the winter rye. That stuff is great for the soil, but hard to kill off when you want to put in your garden. Last year I covered it with paper bags (recycled from the grocery store) and with a few inches of top soil, and in a few weeks it was ready to plant. So that is what I did this year. The day after I was done, we had 2 days of 50-60 mph winds and I was expecting the bags to be blown all over the neighborhood. But happily, everything stayed in place and the garden should be ready within a few weeks.

The other day I planted some bulbs that my son Michael brought me from the Netherlands. He gave them to me at Christmas but the ground was frozen and I felt that I had missed my window of opportunity. But I kept them in the garage and when I peeked into the bag the other day, they were sprouting. Now what do I do? Well, I brought the deck boxes into the house to defrost and when they had warmed for a day or so, I planted all of the bulbs into the soft soil. This actually will probablyw ork out really well because the deer around here love tulips and would eat every single one, whereas they will be safe on the deck. It will be a pretty Easter this year with four boxes full of spring blooms. Maybe I'll transfer them all into a big pot on the deck so that every year we have a spring display. I never really got into forcing bulbs, but this may be a new gardening experience for me!

A WATCHED POT NEVER BOILS

"A watched seed never germinates". Or so it seems. I have been hovering over my seedling trays anxiously looking for any signs of life. Every time I see a tiny bit of light green starting to poke up through the soil, I celebrate. The peppers that I planted a week ago are starting to wake from the soil and will soon be under the grow lights in the living room. The tomatoes that were planted Feb. 1st have their true leaves and will be ready to be transplanted into bigger pots soon. The Burpee tomatoes had a 100% germination rate which, being the optimist that I am, was a very good thing since I planted only one seed per cell. I really hate culling those extra seedlings. The termperature in the hoophouse today was 66 degrees with a hoophouse soil temperature of 42 degrees. The outside air temperature was 44 degrees. The snow is melting slowly and patches of grass are starting to appear, as if to tease us into thinking that spring is here. But I know that we will probably get more snow and certainly are in for more cold temperatures. The thing is though, the sun is still shining at 5:30 pm, as the daylight stretches out a little more each day. My house plants are responding in the longer days and bright reflected light from the snow cover. It's so sunny inside the house that yesterday I stretched out in a big patch of sunshine on the floor and warmly enjoyed reviewing The Vegetable Gardener's Bible by Edward C. Smith. This book is definitely my favorite and I refer to it often. Another is Eliot Coleman's Four-Season Harvest which is invaluable for hoophouse gardeners. Of course, I was distracted when a Stinkbug marched across the carpet and then suddenly stopped when it saw me. Stinkbugs are new to our area and every day I find a few hanging on the drapes, perched on plants or dive bombing the lamps. They do not like the cold and find crevices to squeeze into the house. They are weird shield-shaped brown bugs with antennae and long legs and I swear they see me coming and raise themselves higher to intimidate me. I don't kill them because they emit a bad smell when squished, but I do throw them out onto the snow where they go into slow-mo while freezing. I'm not sure which is a worse demise - squishing or freezing!

GROWING TIMELINE AS OF 2/9/2011

INSIDE ON WINDOWSILL:  Cherry tomatoes (si 2/1), Roma tomatoes (si 2/1), Beefsteak tomatoes (si 2/1), Broccoli (si 2/1), Swiss Chard (si 2/6), Peppers (si 2/8)
HOOPHOUSE:  Swiss Chard (wo hh), Chinese Cabbage (wo hh), Spinach (wo hh), Lettuce (wo hh), Mesclun (wo hh), Lettuce (ds hh 2/6), Mesclun (ds hh 2/6) OUTSIDE:  garlic (wo)
si = sow inside
wo = wintered over
ds = direct sow
hh = hoophouse

THE BEGINNING OF THE MADNESS

I guess I should tell you that I’ve been a gardener of sorts all of my life.  In my childhood, I would sneak into the neighbors’ gardens and gather seeds from their Lady Slippers to plant in my mother’s small patch.  My  grandmother was a wonderful gardener, but was interested mostly in flowers, except for one very large peach tree in her Philadelphia enclosed garden.  Now I know that I was small and all things look proportionally larger than when you grow up, but that one tree produced the most delicious largest peaches I ever ate.  Any that were not  eaten right off the tree would be canned and we would enjoy them in the strudels and pies that she would bake in her small linoleum kitchen. When I got married and moved into our first house, uninvited rhubarb sprouted from our backyard and I never really got used to that taste and finally dug it out.  Over the years and in various houses, we had vegetable gardens of little success.  It was usually a shady patch to blame, or the time constraints of raising a family.  But nevertheless, we would always have a few obligatory tomato plants struggling to survive.  And the small harvests from these plants provided a happy feast at the end of the summer.  When we moved into our current house, I again planted a vegetable garden – under a canopy of towering poplar trees.  Between the shade of the trees, and the wildlife living in this poplar forest, vegetable gardening became such a battle that I eventually replaced it with a wildflower shade garden.  It wasn’t until a wind storm toppled some trees, opening up a hole in the canopy,  that I decided to give it one more try.  One more very serious try.   So after spending a few weeks researching the internet and reading anything that I could find about raised bed  gardening, I finally put three 4x8’ beds in.  I filled them with compost and some manure from the horse up the street, leaves from the poplars and some garden  soil to top it all off.  I made a fence out of wildlife netting to keep out the critters and bought my seeds.  Well, that first spring the garden got off to a great start until some varmint ate all the beautiful seedlings.  Not only that, but I caught a squirrel red-handedly (paw?) chewing right threw the plastic netting.  That’s when I went out and bought a metal fence and even though a squirrel could easily climb it, it deterred any additional nibbling.  In fact, I was so paranoid, I put fences inside fences, inside fences and found that once the plants were pretty well established, and maybe because there were other things for the animals to eat, they left my garden alone.   Once I made the hoophouse, the plastic could be replaced by netting making a very effective barrier.   So I guess that there is always some problem – weather, animals, shade, blight – but that’s what keeps it all so interesting. 

SNOW SHOVELED MY WAY OUT TO THE HOOPHOUSE - IT'S GREEN IN THERE!

It’s 43° here in sunny Eastern Pennsylvania (~1 hour north of Philly) and it seemed like a perfect day to garden.  Hubby Ron actually had to take the gate off the hinges so I could access the garden through the heavy snow and ice.  Put on my snow boots and trudged out to the hoophouse wondering just what exactly I would find.  Shoveled 1½’ of heavy snow to get to the zippered door and when I opened it up – ahhh, that wonderful smell of growth wafted out and made me anxious to plant.  The soil was a warm 42° and the wintered-over crops (spinach, Chinese cabbage, lettuce, Swiss chard and mesclun) were growing out of the soft earth.   In fact, if this heat wave keeps up, we’ll be eating salad from the garden in a week or two!  I reached in to the hoophouse and did a little weeding, because of course, the weeds wintered-over too and then sowed a patch of mesclun and one of lettuce.  Gave the garden a sprinkling of warm water and closed it up to keep the heat in.  The hoophouse that has a domed roof seems to be surviving the harsh weather.  The flat roofed hoophouse ripped a little and collapsed a bit under the weight of the snow, but considering that it both are in their 3^rd winter, I think that my experimental sewn hoophouses are a success.  The wintered-over crops in the flat hoophouse are surviving and starting to grow too, but I do think that the domed hoophouse is the smartest design in an area that gets  snow and ice.  A bigger hoophouse that would span 2 beds would be very cool since I could actually go into it on these February days and enjoy the aroma of spring two months early!  Maybe that will be a future garden project – a bigger, plastic, sewn hoophouse.  My inside plantings have germinated and I moved the tray of seedings (tomatoes and broccoli) onto my grow light rack by my picture window.  Ron constructed a rack out of an old laundry room contraption, added a few grow lights and I am in business!  I sowed some Swiss chard today down the basement and they are being kept warm on the heating mat. 

GROWING TIMELINE:

INSIDE:  Cherry tomatoes (2.1), roma tomatoes (2/1), beefsteak tomatoes (2/1), broccoli (2/1), Swiss chard (2/6)

OUTSIDE IN HOOPHOUSE:  Swiss chard (wintered-over), Chinese Cabbage (wo), spinach (wo), lettuce (wo), mesclun (wo), lettuce (direct sow 2/6), mesclun (ds 2/6)  

DIGGING AT LAST - kind of!?

Eventhough it is icing out, I sowed my early tomatoes (cherry, roma and beefsteak) and broccoli in small, sterilized cells down the basement.  The 'seed starter' medium worked well last year, so I did the same for this year.  They are all covered with a clear, plastic cover and set on a heating pad, since both tomatoes and broccoli like to be a bit warm (~75-80 degrees) when germinating.  My tools were miniature - a toothpick and a flattened table fork.  I watered everything with room temperature water from my outside fish pond - instant fertilizer! I marked my timeline, referring to 2010 and 2009, so I can chart the garden's progress.  Last year at this time, I had already planted some of my greens in the hoophouse!   It felt so good to finally be working in soil, getting my hands (actually my finger tips!) dirty and actually gardening.  A huge ice and snow storm is supposed to hit here tonight and I am thinking that it might be sometime before I can dig my way to the hoophouses.  I should have left the gate open before the gate got stuck closed.  I'll mark that suggestion on next year's calendar. 

WINTER SQUASH

Air Temp:  21°       Hoophouse Soil Temp:  35° - not quite frozen

I suppose that you can’t be a serious gardener without being a serious eater!  And if you love to eat, you love to eat even more if it is fresh from your own garden.  What could be more satisfying, more fulfilling, than to cook with your very own produce.  How much more local can you get than from your own backyard?  But after one successful year with my raised beds, I bought seeds for vegetables that had previously been taboo.  I never, ever grew butternut squash before this last year.  In fact, I never grew any other squash than zucchini.  Maybe after growing that prolific vegetable, which turns into a baseball bat-sized monstrosity when left too long on the vine, I was actually afraid that all squash would be potential giants – almost like Woody Allen’s giant vegetables.  But last spring for some unknown reason, I found some butternut squash seeds at my local Agway and planted a few seeds along my fence.  It turned out to be a very good idea as those small seedlings grew into long vines with about 12 squash.  Since I trained them on the fence, they took up very little garden space and even inadvertently provided a little shade during our very hot July.  I even crocheted little hammocks for each squash which gently supported each as they grew.  This proved to be unnecessary as I found that butternut squash had very strong stems.  But my crafting friends thought it a funny, creative touch to my garden.   So at the end of the growing season, I had 12 butternut squashes in the basement storeroom waiting for winter soup.  I found this excellent recipe on the internet and recommend it highly with fresh baked bread and winter greens.  Enjoy! 

Butternut Squash Soup with Apple & Bacon

 8 slices bacon, cut crosswise into 1/4-inch strips
2-1/2 lb. butternut squash (about 1 medium), peeled, seeded, and cut into
1/2-inch dice (to yield about 6 cups)
1 small Granny Smith or other tart-sweet apple, peeled, cored, and cut into
1/2-inch dice (to yield about 1 cup)
1-1/2 Tbs. finely chopped fresh sage leaves
1 tsp. kosher salt
1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
4 cups homemade or low-salt chicken or vegetable broth

 In a 5-quart or larger stockpot set over medium heat, cook the bacon, stirring occasionally, until crisp and golden, 8 to 10 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the bacon to a plate lined with paper towels.

 Increase heat to medium high. Add the squash to the pot with the bacon fat and cook until lightly browned, 4 to 6 minutes (resist the urge to stir it too often or it won’t brown). Stir in the apple, sage, salt, and pepper and cook for about 4 minutes (you’ll see more browning occur on the bottom of the pot than on the vegetables). Add the broth, scraping up any browned bits in the pot with a wooden spoon. Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce the heat to maintain a simmer, and cook until the squash and apples are very soft, 6 to 8 minutes. Remove from the heat and let cool somewhat.

 Add about half the bacon to the soup and purée, using a stand or immersion blender (you’ll need to work in batches if using a stand blender). Taste and add more salt and pepper if needed. Reheat the soup and garnish each serving with the remaining bacon.

ANOTHER 18" OF SNOW!!

We are buried under another 18" of snow and so is my hoophouse.  I went out there the other day and found that the plastic is very brittle and cracks if I handle it too much in the cold.  The forecast calls for a few more inches of snow and then it is going to get very cold, so that I think that this snow is going to be around for a while.  That's OK by me, but I have to reconcile myself to the fact that I won't be getting into the hoophouse some time.  I plan to start a few tomato plants next week.  Last year, I started all of my tomatoes February 1 and thought that I made a huge mistake because they became too big to keep in the house, and they were almost too big to plant in the hoophouse too.  But I squeezed them in, kept them warm, ventilated and by the time the normal planting season came along, they had a great root system and were already producing fruit!  Plus, we had a very, very hot July, but my garden was well established and I think that the big tomato plants actually provided some shade to themselves and other plants in the garden.  In the end, I had a early, great harvest and so will stagger my starts to cover all the bases.  This year seems to be very much like last year, so I'll just follow last year's schedule.

JANUARY GARDENING

Gardeners generally hibernate in the cold months of the year, sharpening tools and paging through seed catalogues.  Not me!  My growing season starts in January, in the hoophouse and on my windowsill.  In 2009, I sewed  a hoophouse as an experiment in an effort to extend my growing season.  There is lots of information out there about constructing a hoophouse, but I haven't heard of anyone using a home sewing machine to make one!  My hoophouse is constructed over a 4' x 8' raised bed, using PVC pipe on 3' rebar for support.  I purchased 12 yards of 12 ml plastic and (6) 48" sports zippers from a fabric store.  First, I sewed 2 11' lengths of plastic together.  Two zippers were sewn 1' from each end.  And 2 other zippers were sewn across the top.   I used separating zippers so that it could be unzipped from the top for ventilation or from the bottom to access to the bed.  Each 'door panel' could be removed using the zippers.  I then cut 2 end panels to fit, using a bent PVC pipe as a pattern.   I also attached a pocket to the middle of each of these.  These pockets hold 5' rebar rods, which when pounded into the earth, keep your hoophouse from blowing away!  I also put grommets around the edges of the entire hoophouse which were secured into the wooden raised bed frame with screws.  I also constructed a flat-topped version of this, but think that the round-top hoophouse works best.  Both structures are in their third winter and except for some minor repairs, still serviceable.  Not bad considering that on March 13, 2010, a Nor'easter blew in with 50 mph winds!  I know of other people who drape plastic over the PVC and weigh down the edges with bricks or wood.  One year I successfully used up-side-down clear storage boxes to winter over my spinach, which, in fact, led me to using a hoophouse.  The successes of that first experiment encouraged me to continue my undercover gardening and create this blog. In January, if I've planned well and am lucky, I harvest any wintered-over crops, usually greens such as mesclun.  The flavorful lettuces and various greens are worth digging a path through the snow and braving the cold Pennsylvania temperatures.    This year, on January 5, I harvested fresh winter salad and served it with cold storage butternut squash soup.  It was awesome and set me to dreaming about my next garden.  Lately though, it's been very cold and the garden is at a standstill, waiting for the sun to warm. January for me is usually spent gathering seed packets at Agway, rather than ordering from the catalogues.   I don't want to have to wait even one day to smell those seeds and  I love holding those colorful packets in my hands when January is throwing her worst weather at us.  My first purchase is always 'mesclun' as it does well in a cold hoophouse.  That being said, I plan to plant mesclun in the hoophouse as soon as I can open the garden gate, which right now, is totally blocked by snow.  My flat-topped hoophouse is outside the gate and may be my only option.  I will put my thermometer in there and chart the soil temperature for a few days.  It's so hard not to jump the gun and plant too early, although mesclun usually bides it's time in the cold soil until the temperatures warm a bit for germination.  A soil thermometer presents me with the cold hard facts of January and I rely on mine for guidance.  Tonight, air temps are in the low 20s, and although the soil in the hoophouse is not frozen, the surviving greens are wilted.   I find that there is generally a 15 degree difference, and 35 degrees is a little too cold even for germinating mesclun.  I guess for now, my only option is to be patient and strap on those cross-country skis!