“You will never be like “The Little Engine That Could’ if you sit on your caboose.” -Les Brown
(Down for the count…the author thinks Mountain Cedar is cruel!)
I got whalloped the other day with Cedar Fever. I thought I was going to slip by this year unscathed, because I hadn’t had any allergy symptoms. I also hadn’t been taking any preventative allergy medicine because of this, although my doctor always said to start taking it late September. But I procrastinated and then it hit me. As I sat there with two tissues stuffed in each nostril, tears streaming out of each eye, and gasping for breath between sneezes, I resolved to never put off taking my allergy medicines again. That got me thinking about banishing all my procrastinating habits, and boy is there a list, and I thought that maybe I could tie this into the gardening blog and pass a little encouragement along the way.
(I think we can, I think we can.)
We have crossed off the first week of the new year, we’ve made our resolutions, and have already watched them go up in flames. Wait, not so fast. Not this year. We are going to stick to our well intended plans with a perseverance that even “The Little Engine That Could” would admire, right? At least we shall stick to our gardening goals. (I’m not so sure about staving off a tempting bowl of ice cream drizzled in hot fudge.) So how do we achieve putting our foot down and meaning it? It is all about planning ahead. If you have read any of the past Happy Gardener blogs, you will probably recognize this as a recurring (maybe irritating) theme. But you see, I have been prepping you all along to walk away from 2014 a very satisfied gardener because you planned ahead all year and were able to achieve success. So for my redundancy, you are welcome. If you didn’t keep up last year, this is your year to shine!
(If your tools look like this, clean ’em, or get rid of ’em.)
So, take advantage of these colder months, and let no time be idle. This is a great time to clean and sharpen up all your tools if you haven’t already. This is what I mean by planning ahead. The February/March pruning season will be upon us before we know it. When it’s time to prune, you want to prune. You don’t want to be staring at your ragged-edged, rust-covered pruners and wasting time searching for your sharpening tool. Do it now and then hang them up, all pristine and waiting to make that first cut. Do you really want to go out to dig your garden, only to have the shovel blade fall off of the handle because of loose screws, or rotted wood? Then you’d have to go find the screwdriver that has probably rolled under a cabinet somewhere in the garage or you’d have to make an unscheduled trip to the store to buy a new shovel. Make the repairs now, or buy the new shovel now, hang it by the pruners to await it’s first excavation project. Did you put in that drip system in fall when I mentioned it would be a great time, when it was not so hot and before it got cold? How about checking your faucets and hoses for leaks? I don’t know how fun you think it is when you go out to water your plants and get a stream of cold water shot straight to your face because of a leak from a hose or faucet, but I don’t like it one bit. So, make repairs, get replacements, and organize now, so when it comes time to plant your garden, you’ve eliminated undo stress.
(I’m not asking for this type of intellect, but we could all learn a little more.)
Okay, now you’ve made your repairs, so the the next best way to be successful in gardening is to arm yourself with as much knowledge as you can. We have a lot of fact sheets under our Learning Center tab on our website that you can read up on. You can learn when to fertilize your lawn, how to plant a tree, learn about organic gardening and and so much more. You can also arm yourself with your own knowledge through observation. Say you are looking to put in a spring vegetable garden this year, or are trying to figure out why yours may not have been so very successful last year. Now is the time to start planning for spring. You’ll want to take some time and scrutinize your area, taking note of how much sunlight hits the garden and at what time of the day. Check it at multiple times of the day. Veggies need at least 10-12 hours of full sun to really thrive. Hopefully you took notes last year that you can reference, but if not, make plans to do it this year. You can really benefit from note taking, because it helps to eliminate making the same error twice, thus eliminating the need to have a psychotic episode in the middle of the garden.
(Start seeds indoors now for strong healthy transplants.)
Think about your soil. Veggies need about 15 inches of soil depth to produce correctly, so make adjustments, digging down further or raising your garden up. (Aren’t you glad you repaired that shovel now?) Most likely you will need to amend your soil as well. This means adding in compost and peat moss and garden soil. A 1/3 ratio of each works great, and then mix it all up to await your transplants or seeds. Speaking of seeds, now is a great time to come look through our seed packets. You should make a list of what you want to grow, what you will actually eat, and then reference the Vegetable Garden Planting Guide on our website to see what months you should plant each variety of seed or transplant. You could plan ahead and read over it now, and be able to schedule your seed purchases for the year. Now that’s what I’m talking about. You can start your seeds early indoors now for some vegetable varieties. If you are not privy to a greenhouse, you can mimic the warmth by placing your seed tray on top of coiled up incandescent Christmas lights that you plug in every night. (You know you have some because you haven’t taken them off your house from Christmas yet.)Â Your seedlings will take off like crazy. For gardening plans and inspiration, why not check out our Pinterest page. It could open up a whole new world of possibilities for you.
(Protect your plants from freeze damage in winter, and drought in summer.)
Find out what pests or disease you may encounter, or come see us and describe what you have encountered in the past; and we can get you on the right regimen for combating both of these. In a lot of these cases, preventative measures work the best anyway. Keep the pests at bay and they cannot come to play. Plan for these next few colder months, and also for the sure to come blazing hot summer. We’ve already had a hard freeze and there will be more to come. Hopefully you covered your plants with cloth and then plastic (never reverse) and they have so far survived any permanent damage. With January and February being our two coldest months, you might want to go ahead and purchase some In-sulate to protect your current and future plants. You can read up on protecting your plants in my past November blog “Gear Up For Old Man Winter”. I warned you that nasty cold weather would be coming! To plan for the drought-inducing hot summers of San Antonio, you should look into water-saving systems. Like I mentioned before, a drip system is a great aide for watering your garden, especially when those water restrictions get placed upon us right when our plants need water the most. Start researching drip systems now, map out your garden area, and buy the supplies. That way you will be ready to implement the system in early spring when the weather warms up, and have it ready to go once you plant your garden. You can read up on more water conservation tips from a past blog in July called, “Water, Water, Everywhere And Not A Drop To Drink”.
(You don’t have to be late, late, for a very important date!)
I know it can be hard to think of a spring/summer season when it seems like we’ve just found our bag of scarves, hats, and gloves. But had we looked for our winter outerwear earlier, knowing that winter was coming, we wouldn’t be shivering in the attic or garage while scurraging through old boxes and bags. It’s the same thing when it comes to being one step behind in the garden. Timing is really key and in some cases if you are late to the party, you might have to wait another whole season to try again. There is quote that Maria at Rainbow Gardens Thousand Oaks always said her daddy told her, “If you aren’t an hour early, you are late.” I think we can apply that message to our preparedness of gardening. So, let’s do this together. Let’s be early, not late, and be successful gardeners in 2015! I know we can, I know we can!
-The Happy Gardener That Could-
-Lisa Mulroy-
