It’s February! The long, long, “always feels the longest” month of January is finally behind us, with its sub-zero temps, blustery winds, freezing rains and lack of insulating snow blanket. Hopefully February will be a sweet month! It’s started with a beautiful 6″ snowfall that fell gently to cover every branch and surface, and has not been disturbed by even a slight breeze. Such beauty makes the heart sing.
Regardless of what’s happening outdoors here in Zone 5, if crops are to be ready for planting in the potager and flower borders at the appropriate time, it’s time to do the second round of indoor seeding. It’s not a long list, but it’s some of my favorite crops: cippolini “Bianca di Maggio”, all of the various snapdragons, dahlia “Sunny Reggae”, salvia “Blue Bedder”, the pretty orange Agastache “Tango” and celery. Italian flat-leaf parsley could have been in the first seeding, but the two flats were full and I didn’t want to start a new one for just one crop, so it will go in as well. Only the celery and snapdragons need light to germinate this time. After this, the seeding schedule grows with longer crop lists and larger quantities. Whee!
Have you begun seeding? If so, what are you sowing? Be sure to include your zone, so readers can do comparative thinking.
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I had been holding off on seeds, but got bananas and agaves that may take six months to germinate so thought I better get started.
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You are much more adventurous than I…never even attempted such exotics! Keep us posted on results.
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I’ve got pretty low expectations for success but we’ll see.
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In zone 8 I am starting some chamomile (german), celery (tango), both yellow and bunching onions, beets (Detroit supreme), peppers (candy apple bell, Thai hot, born to be mild jalepeno), and peppermint!
More culinary and tea herbs will follow shortly along with tomatoes, corn, kale and collards. It’s going to be a busy month isn’t it?
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It is always so interesting to me to see how much difference a zone makes. My old farm was in zone 6…such a huge bonus compared to my zone 5 location now. Chamomile and celery both need to be left uncovered, but you probably know that. The huge difference in taste/smell of peppermints grown from seed always amazes me as well, but surely there will be a few plants that turn out just right. What’s your favorite tea herb? I’m a tea-aholic!
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I’ve only got a few perennials under the lights right now. A few more weeks and I’ll get started on some more perennials and herbs. It will be early March before I get much else going… though I am itching to get things started!
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The polar vortex must have plunged you into a deep freeze this week. Those negative temps did not reach us on the New England coast but a sister in Wisconsin suffered through and a daughter in Kentucky had frozen pipes. Hope you didn’t lose anything in your lovely gardens!
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Me, too. It’s now a balmy 40 degrees and our pretty snow is almost gone already! Lots of rainy days coming and a week of upper 50 degrees…but the groundhog saw his shadow. Sigh!
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I’m not even sure what zone I’m in for gardening, we live in such a crazy micro-climate that it’s tricky to pin point! I have sweet peas & carnations in, I’ll do a second seeding of carnations next week. I have larkspur to put in soon, as well as Chinese-forget-me-note and another one I cannot remember right now. My concern is…the Floret Book says to sow larkspur in the ground, after danger of frost, it doesn’t like being transplanted, but the package from Floret says start indoors 10-12 weeks before last frost, then transplant. I’m in the mood for planting, so I think I’m going to do a bit of both.
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I’ve seeded larkspur in peat pots to avoid having to transplant, but they never do as well as those just directly seeded in the garden. What works best for me is to just sprinkle the seeds (mixed with a handful of potting soil to help hide them from the birds..and that also helps to keep from seeding them too thickly) on top of a February snow. Then they are lovely and after that they just self seed if you let them (so you may want to put them in the perennial section rather than an area that you plan to till each year!) Give it a try at least with part of your seed. I’m doing mine on the next snow…..
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