digitS'
Garden Master
I reported on our weather on the Weather thread:
I had an 8' fluorescent light set up for the South Window, a couple of seasons. Then, the room was remodeled including a new ceiling and I did not want to bring the light into the house again. I also had that light in the greenhouse - once, I think it was. What a bother. The goings-on in the greenhouse involves more activity and bigger plants, bigger containers taking up more room. The light was constantly in the way.
This year, I am paying a price for not setting up the light somewhere. Or, the plants are. @AMKuska , tells us about the slow growth of her peppers. Three hundred miles away, I don't want to compare.
So often, I've started peppers and tomatoes maybe a little too early and had trouble finding room for the plants by May - almost willing to try to slow their growth. There just isn't much consistency in relying on Spring sunlight. Record low temperature averages meant very, very little sunlight. Climate Change? Well, how about just over the last 10 months? Okay, that's not Climate but we went from the highest temperatures ever recorded in the area (June 2021) with blazing sunshine to the lowest average temperatures for days and days with the "clouds, clouds and more clouds!" Good Goobly Goop. Sunlight Extremes!
There are probably some measures of Winter/Spring sunlight and the PNW at this latitude rates very poorly, I've read. The plants have about a month to catch up to amounting to something. Only about half the time has the weather been good enough to set the warm-season plants out before the 3rd week of May. Keep your fingers crossed for them, please
. Oh, and it isn't just the warm-season plants but we have the hoop house for quite a few of the cool-season plant starts so some of them are already in there and they can take things a little better, coddled along. Quite a few of them will not have to hit-the-ground-running in the open garden.
Steve
Okay, so here I am over on the Propagation Forum saying -- if there was a Time for Supplemental Lighting -- Spring 2022 Would Have Been IT!The Weather Service has crunched some local numbers:
"The recent stretch of cold weather set records for the coldest 7 day stretch of weather for the month of April. Average temperatures for many locations were only in the mid 30 ..."
Average. It wasn't terribly cold overnight. I believe that only one location (about 150 miles away) had a single daily record low. The days have just not warmed because of overcast skies. Air movement has been mostly out of the mountains, often from the north.
Our common Pacific Northwest spring weather was/is here towering over the landscape with clouds, clouds and more clouds! Depending on sunshine, the greenhouse has not afforded a very good growing space.
We visited a friend's greenhouse, Friday. It was the same story. Supplemental lighting sure could have helped. Several more days of this.
Steve
I had an 8' fluorescent light set up for the South Window, a couple of seasons. Then, the room was remodeled including a new ceiling and I did not want to bring the light into the house again. I also had that light in the greenhouse - once, I think it was. What a bother. The goings-on in the greenhouse involves more activity and bigger plants, bigger containers taking up more room. The light was constantly in the way.
This year, I am paying a price for not setting up the light somewhere. Or, the plants are. @AMKuska , tells us about the slow growth of her peppers. Three hundred miles away, I don't want to compare.
So often, I've started peppers and tomatoes maybe a little too early and had trouble finding room for the plants by May - almost willing to try to slow their growth. There just isn't much consistency in relying on Spring sunlight. Record low temperature averages meant very, very little sunlight. Climate Change? Well, how about just over the last 10 months? Okay, that's not Climate but we went from the highest temperatures ever recorded in the area (June 2021) with blazing sunshine to the lowest average temperatures for days and days with the "clouds, clouds and more clouds!" Good Goobly Goop. Sunlight Extremes!
There are probably some measures of Winter/Spring sunlight and the PNW at this latitude rates very poorly, I've read. The plants have about a month to catch up to amounting to something. Only about half the time has the weather been good enough to set the warm-season plants out before the 3rd week of May. Keep your fingers crossed for them, please

Steve