Getting ready to garden
February is here! It is time to dust off the gardening tools and get ready for another great season of fresh garden veggies! While I grow my garden year round, most of the winter stuff just sits there, and is pretty boring. My onions that I planted in November don’t look much different than they did 10 weeks ago, and while the collard greens grow nicely in the winter… it is not the same as the summer garden.
I start getting ready for the summer garden on New Year’s Day. I start to plan what I am going to grow, and where it will go. This takes some thought, because certain plants do not like to grow where specific plants grew last year. I never grow zucchini two years in a row, because of this. I also like to imagine how big everything will get in the summer, and make sure there is plenty of room. Last year, my lima beans got MUCH bigger than I thought and they grew over my cucumbers on one side and tomatoes on the other. I tore my garden up with my first freeze in December, and I have been thinking about adding a ton of compost, but I really need to wait until the garden is less muddy. While my garden sits idle, there is still lots of work to do.
I always try to grow my plants from seed, and I start these seeds in January. I have lettuce and tomato seedlings already up, and the tomatoes will have a nice head start when I put them in the ground in March. The lettuce will go in the ground once we are safe from this bitter cold. A little frost won’t kill the lettuce, but it can’t handle 25 degrees. I have also started basil, peppers and okra, but it will be a long time before they see the great outdoors.
I always get antsy to actually plant something this time of year, and I would have put pea seeds in the ground this past weekend, if the weather hadn’t been so lousy. I plan on putting in two rows this week, and I will build a tee-pee style trellis for them to grow on. The peas grow fast, and cold weather does not bother them. They will be ready to eat in April!
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on 02/01 at 04:55 PM
