Early Spring Gardening Tips
Willow buds are some of the most fascinating of flowers. There are many varieties of Willow growing in this area and they are just beginning to show signs of life.
Greetings! Glad you are here :) This musing will touch on some gardening activities that I do during this time in March and some tips you might enjoy.
A good thing to know when you’re first starting seeds indoors in colder climates is: why would you want to?? Well, you get a head start on the growing season. So if you plant a cabbage seed indoors mid-March-April, you’ll be able to harvest come July/August instead of September, if you’re lucky. Herbs like Thyme, Lemon Balm and Parsley will be ready and far more abundant to use way before they would be if they were direct seeded (DS) into the ground. Now, not all plants like to be transplanted (like carrots, radishes ~ think taproot vegetables ~ I have however successfully TP’d beets before) and some actually do better with the cold/warm fluctuation of spring time temperatures, like peas (again normally listed as DS, you can TP these as well if you’re careful). Greens/Lettuce mix, carrots, potatoes, poppies, radishes, cilantro, come to mind for direct seeding.
What I use: plastic pots and flats that I’ve collected over the years from buying plants from the businesses in town. They are plentiful and easy to work with and stack. You can also make your newspaper pots which is super fun, but time consuming; you can use plastic yogurt containers or other plastic one-use items that you want to reuse. Just be sure that you poke drainage holes into containers like that. Otherwise the soil can get too damp and create an anaerobic (without air) environment and the roots will drown, thus killing the plant. Good soil is aerobic (with air)!
An organic potting mix can be found at most hardware stores. I like to use these sterile mediums because seedlings are also subject to “damping off”, where the stems basically shrivel up and the plants fall over. It’s caused by a fungus, but is essentially a dis-ease of the plant in regards to it’s growing environment. Being mindful to not over-water, keep good circulation, wash pots with soap and water before re-using, keep a tidy space, and paying attention and talking to your plants will all help keep damping off at bay. If however, you have zero access to obtain potting mix, you can use soil and add a bit of sand to it to thin it out. Then, using an oven proof pan, bake until it’s 180 degrees F. This should sterilize it so using indoors is less of an issue. Here’s the setup I use for the plants in my home gardens and community garden beds…
Home set-up
The lights I use are both florescent and LED. Use what you have!! Sorry, I can’t give out any recommendation at this point on what to use. My partner helps a lot with these sorts of things. I do the growing :) These lights were gifted to us years ago and they are still working great. Use a spray bottle to ‘mist’ your seeds/seedlings, move to a watering can as the plants grow larger and can handle it.
If you notice on the bottom row, the flats (basically a ‘tray’ of plants) are covered by a plastic cover (plastic wrap can also work, as can diligent attention to watering). This cover helps retain the moisture and it’s good rule of thumb to keep your seeds moist until germination! Germination is when you can see the root begin to reach out into the soil and shortly after that the first seed leaf will appear. It’s absolute magic.
Some plants that I start indoors…
February-early March: rosemary (is super slow!) petunia, pansy, snapdragons, most perennials like columbines; celery, leeks, oregano, parsley, thyme, marjoram, fennel, lavender (most but not all herbs are slow to grow)
Mid March: spilanthes, sage, tulsi, basil, lemon balm, brassica crops like cabbage, kale, broccoli, cauliflower (these can be seeded later too, this is the earliest that I would do it unless growing in a greenhouse)
End of March-early April: calendula, cosmos, marigolds, nasturtiums, shirley poppy, strawflower, cucumber+, zucchini squash, tomatoes+
Mid April: sunflowers, beans, (gives a leg up, but have to TP (transplant) very carefully); lettuces, maybe nasturtiums here too as it does depend on the weather.
+for me these are indoor greenhouse crops. Perhaps if you had a super protected from the wind, gotta a lot of sunshine spot, you could try growing outdoors :) OR, if you live in a warmer area. Always try things out for yourself! It’s really fun to experiment and observe what happens!
Now these times are just estimates. It really does depend on the weather and the area in which you live and whether or not you have a proper greenhouse that gets adequate light (I do not). Many states have cooperative extensions that can be helpful here as well. The Rodale Institute is a well established resource for organic growing. And seek out the gardeners in your area! They are going to be your best resource. And remember this too, everyone has various methods of gardening that work for them; take in the info, but do experiments too, that’s half the fun.
In Skagway AK, we are listed as a zone 6, but I think it’s more of a zone 4/5 with some micro niches.
Happy babies! Some of these are seeded a bit too thick (like the oregano on the far left, bottom pot), but the sage in the middle is a good spacing. It’s really easy to over seed!! And it’s way harder to kill a plant after it’s growing then to seed more thinly :) When plants are too crowded they won’t grow as strong and vigorous as they would when they have some wiggle room, so give ‘em some space!
Now growing plants that look like this requires artificial light. You just won’t get plants that look like this placing pots on your windowsill. Well, maybe if you’re in Texas or California, never grown there so can’t say for sure. In northern climates though, the plants will grow super leggy before they’re ready to go outside and when plants are leggy they become weak and can’t withstand the wind/rain that comes with transitioning to outside when you ‘harden them off.’ You could probably do okay with sunflowers started May 1st-ish indoors on a window sill, maybe zucchini and nasturtiums as well. If you don’t have lights but want to grow cabbage, you might want to purchase from a local garden center or ask other gardeners if they have extra starts or would trade you for them. You can however grow a great garden using direct seeding methods only, it just takes a bit longer to see results and I wouldn’t recommend seeding eggplant outdoors.
After seeding, you usually will need to transplant, or ‘bump up’ your plants in order to give them room and allow their roots to grow stronger. It takes a bit of practice to get the knack for what kinds of plants can be tighter (like lobelia and oregano) and what ones need deeper pots (like parsely), but if you slow down and pay attention, a lot of times you’ll find you’re intuitively guided to ways of doing this. It does depend on many factors, including your space, how big your plants are, etc. If you have more questions that you’d like to toss my way, I’m open to doing garden consultations ~ hit me up, now is the time to start growing!!
Saving seeds from a Strawflower.
And when the weather is nice and you just want to get outdoors, a great activity to do in the garden is pick up all the sticks that have fallen. Cut back the fallen tree limbs. Trim back rose bushes and prune your fruit trees (best to do when dormant). Cut back last year’s raspberry canes and envision what you’d like to see in your garden this coming year. And remember to simply observe ~ the garden will teach you in ways you never imagined once you start to pay attention!
Thanks for reading friend ~ wishing you a good day ~ until next time,