It is also interesting to me how February drags on and then March hits and BOOM! Fast and furious through October. Between composting, germinating starts, building or re-building beds, making plant medium, setting up containers, and on and on...it gets pretty hectic all at once. How do you pass the February days?
February is the beginning of the gardening season for us. The beds are prepped in January and we plant lattuces, chard, spinach, peas, potatoes and onions this month. We are still sifting some compost for the flower beds, and just got the roses winter pruned, but pretty much every day is either weeding, tending the indoor starts, planting, or tossing compost.
After I get tired of looking at all the plant catalogs, I spend it by deciding how I'm going to rearrange things. I have to at least redo one perennial bed every year. Either the plants outgrow it, or it was once sunny and now shady oe the animals do too much damage or I just get bored with it. I have photos and drawings of all my gardens in a binder so I know exactly where most of my perennials and bulbs are planted. I decide in February what bushes need trimmed back and what plants need moved and where I'll plant them and what will be put in their spot. This year I decided I want a bigger pond so I am moving part of a garden and deciding the shape and how to hide the filters and electricity to it. I got ducks last year and they did a lot of damage so I need to move other plants, protect some plants and plant fast growing, yet pretty plants for them to eat.
Well, we got one garden plowed before all the snow. Not going to be able to do much till all the water dries a bit. We had three snows so the ground is pretty saturated. Still working on fruit trees. Have turnips in the little garden from fall planting. Sure hate to plow them under. They are much better in the winter. Sweet !
We hit 54 today, and for Iowa in February that is pretty sweet indeed. Now the itch is really needing scratched!! My wife said the grocery store has their first load of seeds in.
Last fall I resurrected a shade flower bed I have not used in 10 years. So in February I can plan what I am going to do with it. I bought a new book, "Making the most of Shade." Now I have lots of new ideas. Jerry
