getting ready for spring?

[Tiam]

It's too cold to plant. On dry days I work on laying down card board boxes, flat on t he garden bed and building up rocks along side them. Filling them with top soil. I have some seeds in flats with a heating blanket underneath them, but still, this winter light just isn't enough for them in a window, so they are questionable. 4 weeks old, no secondary leaves. I've never been very successful at starting and keeping seedlings going to transplantable levels.


In the outdoor garden, I'm pouring bark around the edges. I'm hoping the cardboard will act as a mulch to keep the bamboo at bay. Anyone else doing anything?

[herbgeek]

I decided that after 15+ years gardening, that this would be the year I would get scientific about it. So I've made my planting plans for spring, summer and fall vegetables - taking into account the maturation dates of the particular varieties I've selected, as well as extra time needed when there is lower light and temp levels in the fall all ina spreadsheet. I put together a notebook to record data this year. By mid February, I will put up the plastic for my low tunnels, to melt any snow and warm up the soil to plant early crops in March. As soon as the ground thaws enough, I want to do a "real" soil test that looks for macro and micro nutrients so I know what, if anything, to add to my soil.

I have most of my seeds ordered and in house. Still waiting for one catalog to arrive- Select Seeds which carries flowers of all types. Seems that january is endless to a northern gardener.

[jania]

Friday I cleaned out from under the citrus trees and fertilized (1st third for the year) and while we haven't had much rain the weeds don't seem to have noticed so I got some quiet time pulling them up.

[leslieann]

Hmm, getting ready for spring.

Well, I noticed the groundhog thing last week. I do also notice that the days are lengthening. It is still light at five thirty pm and it is usually fairly light at eight am.

Spring....in about three weeks, it will probably be warm enough during the day for the maple trees to be tapped. I expect to start hearing the chickadees make their spring song soon......"Dee, dee; dee, dee..." rather than the wintery "chickadee dee dee." But we just got our first real snow of the season, DH is busy again waxing his skis, and spring still seems like a faraway dream. I am more than a little jealous of your three-season gardeners. I learned to garden in Virginia and have never really adapted to these colder climes.

[Merski]

All of our seeds are in (the house not the garden yet!) except onions, which we know we can get almost anywhere. Will be starting onions and shallots, parsley and will even try to start rosemary from seed (wish me luck). Have cool seed starting area we purchased last fall to keep cats for using seedlings as smorgasbord greens bar.

[jania]

Wednesday I transplanted my tomatoes into larger pots, upgrading from their "seed starter" planters. I keep my little seedlings outside during the day, still bringing them inside at night. We have been teased by forecasts of rain but everyday so far the clouds just slowly flow over and by.

[Jemima]

I ordered several bushes (sea buckthorn and currants and another thorny blackberry) last fall and they should be here mid-March. I've got all but one packet of seeds, which should arrive next week.

Meantime, I'm determined to NOT have slugs all over the place this year, so I plan to rake the soil several times and treat it with "Escar-go!" The handyman sealed all the cracks in the foundation last fall which I hope will keep them from breeding in the crawl space.

Still need to prune the Butterfly Bush and get a tree service out here to remove two enormous juniper bushes and liberate a considerable amount of planting space.

We had a South Carolina sort of winter here in Pennsylvania and I'm really tempted to plant some cool weather crops early, like right now. Maybe I'll try a few seeds and see what happens.