February In The Food Garden

Winter on the island has been very mild this year but then along came February, bringing the ‘weather’ with it. For some reason, early February seems to always bring on snow and cold, the harshest of the winter weather.

We got a wee skiff of snow, some minus temperatures, a biting cold breeze, and more wintery woes to come. Luckily, this will soon blow over and we will be outside planting early peas and broad beans into the garden beds.

Jumping Jesus aka Hairy Bittercress. Ugh!

Here are a few things that you can do this month in the garden, greenhouse, or cold frame.

In the yard…

- Prune apple, pear, fig, and other fruit trees. Choose a warm and dry day to prune, rainy day pruning may spread fungal diseases. Spray with Dormant oil/lime sulphur mix (sold as a kit) to smother over-wintering pests and fungal diseases. Spraying now will help reduce pest issues in spring and summer and best of all, you are not harming any of the beneficial insects as they are not yet out.

- Prune roses, cutting them back by 1/3 to promote new branching and more blooms. Spray with the dormant oil mix, as above. Helps to cut back on black spot.

- Weed your pathways and beds now, especially the awful seed-popping Hairy Bittercress that you see in the picture above. This stuff is dreadful and once you have it, you have it. You gotta stay on top of it or it soon takes over everything. How? It has exploding seeds! The plant looks harmless enough, small little rounded leaves, a slender stalk of teeny tiny little white flowers... and then POP! The seeds literally snap off the plant, scattering hundreds of weed seeds everywhere. Hairy Bittercress is one of the earliest weeds to emerge, in our area in springs up in January or February, going from small sprout to seed popping in just 6 weeks.

In the greenhouse/house

- This month we can fertilising our indoor plants, citrus trees, and over wintering annuals again.

- Check your over wintering bulbs (glads, dahlias, begonias...) If you see any that are mouldy, soft or mushy, remove them before they spread the rot to the other bulbs. If you see any that are starting to sprout, it is time to pop them into pots or planters. Transfer them to the garden when all risk of frost is over.

- Cut back your geraniums (pelargoniums) hard now for nice, bushy plants with lots of blooms all summer long. If you do not cut them back, they will end up leggy and less attractive by the time summer comes along.

For more geraniums, take the cutting and pot them up.

Garden Journals

- Jot things down. I personally have been keeping a garden journal for many years, a brand new book each year, with my thoughts and plans for both gardens and greenhouse. This year I printed up my own journals for the greenhouse, which I love so much. They are on lovely kraft paper for that vintage vibe, with drawings done by my super talented baby girl.

- Now is a terrific time to pick up a new journal for the gardening season ahead. Write down all your great ideas, recipes, favourite tomatoes to grow this year, new veggies to trial. Plot out your garden plan, your succession sowing schedule, colour schemes. Draw or paint pictures, cut pics out of magazines and paste them in your journal to inspire you. When you sow, when you harvest, how much you harvest… the ideas for your journaling are endless.  

Start artichokes from seed this month.

Seeds to Start in February

If you are not sure when to start seeds in your area, you will need to know two things. First, when is the last average frost date in your area? Second, when does the seed package say to sow? Check the back of the package for planting directions and timing.

Here on Vancouver island, last frost varies widely. On the south end of the island, it is March 28th, while here on mid-island we go by the April 28th date, a whole month later. Therefore, for us, if the seed package says to start 8 to 12 weeks before last frost, we are good to go. There are not many veggies that are started yet at this time, see the list below.

Veggies

- Peppers, both hot and sweet.
- Lettuce, greens, mustards
- Oriental greens like Boy Choi
- Peas
- Alliums - leeks and onions
- Artichokes

- Asparagus from seed, if you have the patience of a saint. Takes 5 years to go from seed to harvest.

Herbs
- Most all of the hardy, perennial ones ... oregano, parsley, mint, thyme, marjoram, sage.
- Start rosemary and tarragon from cuttings rather than seed.
 
Flowers
- Sweet peas
- Snapdragons
- Pansies and violas
- Petunias
- many, many more

In actuality, the flowers that you can start now, from seed, are much too numerous to mention. Check the back of your packages for start dates. If it says to start them 8 to 12 weeks before the last frost date, you are good to go.

Direct Sow In the garden
- Broad/fava beans (need no frost blankets or covers, just pop them in the ground this month)
- Radishes, spinach, winter lettuces, Oriental greens (start under cover, either low frames or row covers)

Change out your winter pots and planters with some spring colour. Pick up some forced potted bulbs, pansies, violas, primulas, and English Daisies to brighten your front stoop.

Soon, very soon!

How To Grow Really Great Garlic

Organically grown garlic from your own garden is plump, fresh, sticky with garlic juices, each clove so full of flavour! Store bought garlic has been bleached, is dry and stale tasting, and was grown in who-knows-what or how. Check into 'night soils', if you are brave enough. Ugh. 

As with anything else, once you have tasted the real stuff, the home grown stuff, you will be forever spoiled and will never again buy that tasteless stuff from the grocers.

When to plant?

Garlic is planted between Mid- September and early November here on the west coast. If you live in a colder area with snows, you will want to plant just a bit before the hard frosts begin. Plant at the same time as you plant your tulips.

Prep Your Soil

Weed the bed. Garlic does not compete well for nutrients with weeds or grasses in the bed. For nice big bulbs, you will need to remove all the weeds. Pull the large ones and hoe down the smaller ones.

Feed the soil. Garlic is a surprisingly heavy feeder. Feeding your soil well right now is key for the biggest and best garlic.

Add lots of organic matter to the bed, something like fish compost, organic compost, or manure. My favourite is chicken as it has the most nitrogen and is not weedy, but use whatever manure you have access to, they are all great for feeding the soil.

I have pretty great soil as I amend each fall, but I still make sure to add lots of manure at planting time. Organic gardening is all about feeding the soil to feed the plants. So.. while I spend money each fall on manure or compost, that is really all I ever have to do. No additional feeding is required throughout the rest of the year.

Test and Amend… You may also want to do a soil test at this time to see if you need more nutrients added to the bed. Things like kelp, bonemeal, bloodmeal, organic all purpose fertilisers, rock phosphates, etc.. You need lots of nitrogen for the top growth and phosphorous for good bulb growth.

Loosen up the soil. If your garden bed is hard-packed, loosen the soil to make it soft and friable. You want to be able to push the cloves right into the fluffy soil with no effort, this will allow the roots to spread out nicely to go after those nutrients that you just added. Do not muck about in wet soil or you will compact it into concrete.

Do not rototill. Rototillers break down soil texture while destroying the beneficial fungi threads and micro-organisms in the soil … not to mention what it does to those poor earthworms that are working so hard to turn your garden into gold. Instead, use a broad fork or a garden fork to gently lift the soil. No need to turn it, just lift to loosen.

Plant.

Break apart the bulbs into cloves. Plant only your fattest and biggest cloves, leaving the small ones for cooking. It is the size of the clove that determines the size of next year's bulbs, smaller cloves maker smaller bulbs. 

Push the clove 2 inches deep into the loose soil, pointy side up. The tip of the garlic should be 1 to 1.5 inches below the soil’s surface. In cold winter areas, go an inch deeper and mulch with several inches of leaves or straw to insulate.

Space them 4 to 8 inches apart. The farmer guy plants his 7 inches apart, says that the closer they are together, the smaller the bulbs will be. Therefore, I also I plant mine 7 inches apart and make the rows 7 inches apart, too. I figure if it works for the professional growers, it should work for me, too.

To keep the rows nice and straight, I push the handle of the rake lightly into the soil to make an imprint, and keep my planting holes on that line.

Cover the garlic with soil or good compost. This is a great opportunity to add another layer of compost or manure, especially if you do not have great soil.

Label your garlic if you are growing several varieties.

If your garden bed is super dry, if you are having a hot and dry fall, slowly water the bed for a long time to give it a really good soak. I usually put the sprinkler on it for an hour or two. This year, we are having a very wet fall, so no watering is required. Just plant and walk away.

Begin watering in spring when the rains peter out, giving them an inch of water per week. I put my soaker hoses in while the garlic is still tiny, to make watering a breeze … just turn on for 20 minutes once a week.

Your garlic will start shooting up in late fall or sometime in the winter, depending on the weather. Do not worry, this is normal and they are tough as nails. All will be well. 

Some folks will cover their beds for the winter, with straw or leaves, and remove it again in spring. I do not bother with this extra step. Here on the island, even our toughest winters do not faze the garlic. 

If you are live in a colder gardening zone and are reading this, you will have planted your garlic already in September. Wait till the air is cold and the ground freezes just a bit, and then add a cover of leaves or straw, usually in mid to late October. Never mulch anything when the ground is still warm.  

Harvest the scapes (the curly tops) in May.

Stop watering after harvesting the scapes! You do not want to lift bulbs that are wet with moisture as they will go mouldy and will not cure well.

Lift garlic in July, when half the leaves are golden brown.

Happy Gardening !

Putting The Garden To Bed in 5 Easy Steps

Doing a bit of work out in the garden in fall makes for a really easy spring; You’ll plant sooner, have little to no pests, and enjoy happy, healthy, thriving veggies.

Remove any foliage that touches the soil, leaving only healthy, upright ones on your winter veggies.

The plant in this picture is celeriac aka celery root, it is left in the garden in fall, to be harvested as needed between October and March. The roots plump up nicely in the fall rains and they taste even better after a bit of frost/cooler weather.

1. Post Harvest Clean Up! Remove All Extra Vegetation

After you have harvested your summer veggies, canned and stored them to enjoy throughout the winter, it is garden clean up time. This is the most important step to take now for a pest free garden next year.

Remove everything from the surface of your beds... spent tomato, squash and cucumber vines, all stems, leaves, seedlings and other plant debris lying around on top of the bed. Try to ensure you get all the debris, as it provides winter hiding spots for bugs and their eggs. Cabbage moths, stink bugs, aphids, leaf hoppers, crickets, grasshoppers, and so many more, may all be trying to overwinter their off-spring in your garden. The better your clean up now, the less bad bugs you will have next year.

The only green material left standing should be your winter veggies and perennials like rhubarb, strawberries, asparagus. Clean those up well also, remove any dead or yellow bits.

Compost your garden waste, layering browns and greens for faster cooking compost. Bring all diseased and super buggy plant material to the dump, or burn, do not compost.

Remove all weeds and extra vegetation from the garden now for less weeds in spring.

2. Weed control!

This is the time to get those weeds under control. When the fall rains start, weed seeds on the surface of the soil suddenly all sprout to life.

Remove them by hand, or knock them over with a hoe. I gently pull out all large and/or tap rooted weeds but prefer to knock the wee ones down and rake them up. Do not leave them on top of the beds to die unless it is sunny and dry out or they may quickly take root again during the next rainfall.

My favourite tool for quick fall clean up, is this Winged Weeder. It slices the weeds down from all sides, push or pull, without digging into or disturbing the soil. As it just skims right under the surface, is perfect for us no-dig gardener types. Regular hoes disturb the soil surface which just brings up more weed seeds to deal with. (Nope, no kick backs for telling you about this tool, just sharing)

If you are a companion planter, as I am, you will also have lots of volunteer plant popping up … calendula, nasturtiums, marigolds, borage, lemon balm, all kinds of wee little sprouts springing up everywhere. I remove them all as more will pop in spring.

Top dress your beds with manure or compost for great vegetables next year.

3. Top dress now! Super important!

Top dressing is literally food for your soil! Feed your garden beds with 1 to 3 inches of compost or manure annually, to feed your plants next year. Organic gardening is all about feeding the soil to feed the plants, never use fertiliser in the garden again.

Top dressing with compost or manure feeds the soil, suppresses weeds, improves water penetration and retention, and keeps the beneficial micro-organisms thriving in your garden. You will never need to use fertilisers again.

Layer the manure on top of your soil, rake to smooth out, and walk away. Nutrients will be carried through your soil by the elements, the earthworms, and the beneficial insects and organisms living in the soil. Do not dig in, do not turn your soil, and do not ever roto-till. Roto-tilling destroys soil structure, brings up weed seeds, not to mention what it does to the earthworms, beneficial insects, microbes, and fungi threads.

Investing in your soil, feeding it to make it rich, fertile, and friable, is the single best investment you can make towards a fantastic, healthy, productive kitchen garden.

Feed your soil… Great soil grows great veggies.

4. Test and amend!

Test your soil to check for deficiencies and amend accordingly. Do not dig in, just layer on with your manure and you are done. The amendments will be carried through your soil by the winter rains and earthworms, ready for you to plant up again in spring. Organic amendments may be wood ashes, lime, alfalfa, bone meal, blood meal, rock phosphates, kelp meal ...

Amending now means that the nutrients have time to break down over the winter months, and are therefore available for your seedlings to uptake in spring. Some nutrients will take 4 months or more to become accessible in the soil.

Organic gardening is all about feeding the soil to feed the plants. The more time and effort that you put into it now, the less work you will have next summer. You will not have to feed your plants in summer, at all, if you have invested in creating great soil.

Bug Hotel diy by Vintage With Laces

5. Beneficial insects!

So ... Now that you have removed all the leaves and bits of debris from your veggie garden, you may be wondering where the beneficial insects, like ladybugs, are supposed to over winter?

Easy answer ... anywhere and everywhere, except in your food garden! You want to make your yard into a wildlife haven so that the good guys are there, all around, thriving and more than happy to eat up your bad guys ... before they find your kitchen garden and attack your veggies ; )  
Make the rest of your yard a paradise for birds, bees, frogs, snakes, spiders, bats, and all kinds of other beneficial insects and critters by creating a wildlife friendly habitat. Leave your ornamental grasses and perennial flowers standing to offer seeds for birds and refuge for critters and insects. Make brush piles, and wood piles, or raked leaf piles. Mulch around your trees, shrubs and perennials with wood chips, or bark, for them to live in. They (ladybugs) also love to live in your wood lot!

Make a bug house, they are both super cute and fun to make with your kids. Sure, the bad insects may over-winter in them, too, but if you have a healthy organic garden with great diversity, the good guys will soon get rid of them

You want your yard to be a year round home for all small critters and insects, so provide places for them to hide, live, reproduce and be. You will have a fantastic, happy, healthy yard, and a super happy kitchen garden!    
 

Getting there.. the garden is mostly cleaned up.. now to put away all the pots and stuff, too.

Gardens all cleaned up and amended, ready for spring planting.

Winter crops of Brussels, carrots, watermelon radishes, celery, and celeriac will stay in the garden and get harvested as needed. The mini beds hold the lettuces and spinaches.