It’s February and love is in the air. So is the scent of fresh compost! That means it’s time to get back into your garden! Despite our recent weather, spring isn’t here quite yet. So, this is the perfect time to get your garden ready for the spring and summer madness! Prepping the soil is the biggest key to having a healthy garden this spring. Healthy soil produces healthy crops without a lot of external input from you in the form of pest control and fertilizers.
Here is your February Garden To-Do List:
- If you haven’t done so already, plan your spring and summer garden. Decide what you want to plant and where. Having a garden plan will help keep things organized and help you keep track of what worked well and what you might change in future seasons. Here’s a handy list of veggie varieties that are well suited for our climate .
- Feed the soil by applying compost to all garden beds. Lightly till your existing soil before adding a 2-4” layer of compost. The fresh compost will mix in with your existing soil.
- Strawberries can be planted! Be sure to mulch the base of each plant with pine straw to help keep fungus at bay.
- By the third week of the month, you can plant potatoes 4 inches deep in warm soil.
- Begin sowing seeds of leaf lettuces, collards, and other greens outdoors; for continuous harvest, repeat sowing every 2 weeks.
- Although your local nurseries have organic tomatoes ready, hold off until the first week of March; unless you’re going to closely watch overnight low temps and cover your seedlings to keep them from being damaged by frost. If you’re going to babysit those babies, plant away!
- Plant fruit trees!
- Prune existing fruit trees, then feed them with a good organic fruit tree fertilizer.
