By Jim McGinty
Looking out my window, at the end of February, all I see is white snow and brown mud – not at all conducive to H.G.T. (Happy Gardening Thoughts), but the promise is still out there. I tell everyone that gardeners must be the most optimistic people on the planet: we’re already planning the best ever garden, featuring a complete lack of weeds and back pains, ripe veggies and fruit just falling off the vines into our harvest baskets, and even full cooperation from the Frost Giants. On further reflection, maybe the correct word describing us gardeners is not “optimistic”, but rather “delusional”. We’ll know by August, right?
I’m seeing a lack, or a deficiency (one may not use the word “shortage” in print these days) of seed packets in many garden centers and even hardware stores – fewer choices and higher prices. Even some of the really big names in seed suppliers are restricting purchases to commercial farmers, or are claiming that sales orders have overwhelmed their staff members to the point that they are temporarily limiting new purchases.
Might be time to inventory your own seed bank, and talk with your gardening neighbors about swapping seeds, or you might ask the local public libraries if they are offering a seed exchange program.
Here at Rancho McGinty, we are starting seeds indoors for early Spring transplants (onions, lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, etc.), and also the seeds for those Frost-intolerant, long generation plants (tomatoes, peppers, etc.).
Longtime wife Pat and I are also laying out the 2021 garden on paper (way easier to move pencil marks than to move dirt and raised beds, when the paper version does not match reality J), and checking our garden notes from last year to ensure we plant stuff in new places (“crop rotation” is the official name of the process) – last year’s Colorado Potatoe Beetle babies pop up in last year’s spud bed, and find that this year we planted celery there – starving Beetles – bummer!
If you can get out to the berry garden, now is the perfect time to prune out last year’s canes, the one’s that produced those delicious berries – cut down to the ground all the brown canes, leaving the green or blue canes to do their magic.
If you are raising currents, now is the time to prune out the older (three years old or older) trunks – we’re looking for fruit here, not leaves.
In the orchard, now is the time to finish cutting off all the branches that cross and rub, show Winter damage, or are growing back inside the tree canopies. Also, dormant oil spraying is on the calendar – the oil smothers over-Wintering pests like scale insects, bud moths, leaf rollers, mites, and many other enemies. Be sure to spray on a plus forty degrees Fahrenheit day – saturate the branches, twigs, and trunk.
GARDEN CALENDAR:
On the 11th of March, those prolific plant protectors, the Master Gardeners of Pend Oreille County will offer a free on-line class/panel on the topic of growing small fruits and berries in our often-challenging environment. You can register for the Zoom discussion, which runs from 6:30 to 8:30 P.M., by calling the Extension office in Newport at 509-447-2401.
That’s it for now – this is a planning month, and not a planting month. Wait for it – wait for it – Spring will arrive, and possibly soon.
