Thinking about Spring

All the rushing around and excitement of Christmas and New Year’s is now over, and one can now settle back into “normal’ life. I love holidays, especially seeing family that I don’t often see – but like many of you I am happy to get back to having time for things like peacefully leafing through seed catalogs, perusing garden websites, and deciding what rose to order and squeeze into my fast becoming crowded garden.
My friend Teresa emailed me and told me that she spent the day in her garden weeding, planting leftover bulbs, raking shredded leaves into place, and also being amazed at how green and healthy some plants look right in the midst of winter. I am always amazed at this myself.
I took a little walk around my garden and spotted tiny new leaves at the crowns of some of my perennials – a welcome sight! I am still tired from the holidays, but did pull up my sunflower stalks to put in the trash, as I don’t have a shredder – yet. They are a bit too sturdy for composting. I also saw that the yearly plethora of wild strawberry weeds are encroaching everywhere – will have to spend a few hours pulling these up this spring. At least wild strawberries are easy to pull up as they are very shallow rooted.
If you plan to order or buy seeds to start, it is high time to begin selecting them. Many varieties tell one to start indoors eight to ten weeks before the last frost date – this tells me that these varieties will need to be started by the beginning of March. Always buy only quality seeds. If you are investing the time, energy, and resources to grow a garden, then it worth your investment in good quality seeds. Send for seed catalogs or study seed company websites and make your selections. Keep in mind your limitations of space and time to start the plants and to place them in your garden. Order soon, as supplies of unusual varieties can run out. Here is a list of some good sources for seeds online - www.superseeds.com, www.seedsofchange.com (organic seeds), www.heirloomseeds.com, www.reneesgarden.com or www.thompson-morgan.com. Renee’s Garden carries some very interesting varieties in attractive and informative seed packets – I have found this brand at a large local garden store. I am going to try a few unusual tomato varieties this year from Heirloom Seeds – they have such a tempting variety. I plan to grow “Lemon Drop,” a small yellow cherry type; “Cosmonaut Volkov,” a supposedly very healthy red tomato; “Black Krim,” a dark Russian heirloom tomato with unusual flavor; “Black Prince,” another Russian heirloom recommended for the “tomato connoisseur” and also definitely “Boxcar Willie,” an heirloom type red/orange tomato I have heard good things about. Russians are apparently very serious about their tomatoes, as when I visited a dacha community near St. Petersburg, Russia I saw homemade greenhouses everywhere with tomatoes growing safely inside in defiance of the harsh climate, where one can need a winter coat in May and one nearly always needs a wool sweater at the ready even on sunny days in June. “Pruden’s Purple” and “Mr. Stripey” were two varieties we grew in our garden last year, and they were wonderful – so they will be included again this year as well.
This weekend if I can get up the energy, I plan to visit Smith Park to pick up some free mulch, as I have a lot to mulch this year and my mother reported they have a good supply right now. I hope I can remember where my little wheelbarrow is, so I can begin to spread this mulch if our mild weather holds out a little longer.
For the next couple of weeks I am going to talk about gardens mentioned in literature – combining two of my favorite topics.