How to Get Your Gardening Fix!
If you’re passionate about gardening and growing a bit of your own food in your backyard or a community garden, winter can be a frustrating time of year. And oh-so-long, compared to our relatively short growing season! But we found a few gardening to dos between now and spring to keep your thumbs green and your heart happy!
While we can’t go all out like One Yard Revolution and create a hoop house or mini-greenhouse in our backyards but we can start planning things to do for later this month with help from HGTV.
Birds of a Feather
If you haven’t already, hang bird feeders and keep them full of seeds like black oil sunflower seeds that attract the wildest variety of birds. You want to make sure your feathered friends have a steady source of food and water so they’ll stick around to help with pest control this spring.
Place nesting houses by the end of this month if you want more birds in the neighborhood. Then sit back and watch your seedy buffet feed winged creatures like black-capped chickadees, tufted titmice, cardinals and woodpeckers. The only thing better than feeding your family fresh garden greens, is feeding your neighbors with beaks!
Late February to early March is the perfect time to catch up on tasks that we put off during the rest of the year, like cleaning up tools and planning what to grow where. It’s been mild enough in Erie lately that you can get out and cut spent perennials and feed annuals with a water-soluble fertilizer containing nitrate. You can also clear out weeds and encroaching grass if the ground is moist from snow or rain.
Sow Now, Plant Later
Watching something grow from a seed, to seedling, to flowering or vegetable-producing plant is a joy known best to impassioned gardeners. February is the perfect time to sow seeds indoors to plant this May when they’re ready to transfer. The instructions in Epic Gardening for garden prepping, describe how to reuse household items to grow your seeds. These can include eggshells in egg cartons, ice cube trays, toilet paper rolls, yogurt containers, empty K-cups from your coffeemaker and citrus fruit halves, like lemons, limes and oranges. You’ll need enough soil to start your seeds, topped with a light layer of sand or vermiculite.
Seeds that need a little longer growing season include geraniums, begonias, antirrhinums, peppers and aubergines. Take a look at what you can begin growing now on the Thompson-Morgan garden site, herbs like basil and vegetables like onions, potatoes, artichokes, asparagus, tomatoes and leeks are a few suggestions.
Order catalogues and pour through the colorful photos of plants to get inspired for the growing season. Some favorites include the Park Seed, Burpee Seeds and Annie’s Heirloom Seeds catalogues, as well as websites like Holland Bulb Farms and John Scheepers.
Draft a Garden Plan in the Winter
Here’s another to-do to keep you busy until spring. Draft a garden plan – whether it’s a vegetable garden, evergreen landscaping, container water gardens, floral filler or porch and patio borders, Country Living has 20 different plans to get you started. You can download and print each one, with the design, suggested plants and other options. Or use the online garden planning tool from BHG that lets you design a dream garden by dragging and dropping structures and plants.
Planning for Gardens in Colliers Hill
There are so many green thumbs in the master-planned community of Colliers Hill who can’t be restricted to gardening in warm weather only! Lots of residents are busy prepping their surroundings for a blooming summer! Explore the amenities and tour the model homes here, built by Colorado’s top builders: Meritage Homes, Richmond American Homes, and Century Communities. The floor plans include ranch-style or two-story designs — priced from the high $300s.
