BY JANET SCHOEBERLEIN
SOME SEEDING-LOOKING COUPLES WERE WAITING TO GET “SET UP.” SOMETIME BEFORE I PAID FOR A STRONG, EXPENSIVE PLANT LIGHT, I REALIZED THAT EVERYBODY ELSES THER WAS GETTING SET UP TO GROW POT IN THEIR CLOSETS. STRAIGHT, STUPID ME! AND THE PANSIES DIED.
Unless you want to make extra trouble work with Mother Nature. Here’s what happened to me when I tried to make the growing season longer than Mother Nature had planned. I had the most beautiful pansies in my garden and an early snowstorm was expected, so I decided to move my pansies inside.
I knew I would need an artificial light to keep the plants there. I consulted the yellow pages and found a place that advertised plant lights and hydroponic setups. It was a tiny store with a tomato plant growing into water under a strong light. Some seedy-looking couples were waiting to get “set up.” Sometime before I paid for a strong. expensive plant light, I realized that everybody else there was getting set up to grow pot in their closets. Straight. stupid me! And the pansies died-they need some shade and colder night temperatures, and lots more dirt than I could bring inside.
You are also in trouble if you try to start the growing season too soon. After a few deceptively warm spring days, a dear member of my family has decided to get some seeds started in his small greenhouse. They are going great guns but meanwhile the soil outside and the temperatures at night are still too cold for many of his seedlings. The local nursery has sold him a lot of dirt and bigger pots so he can transplant his seedlings while he waits for warmer weather.
Tradition has it that you can plant most anything after Memorial Day — that means it is safe to plant the warm weather crops that originated in Central and South America. Think corn, beans, tomatoes. and squash. You will find a few members of the kale and lettuce families. which can be seeded much earlier outside. some as soon as the ground is thawed out and workable. Others may specify planting four to six weeks before the date of the last frost. That could be as late as Memorial Day for those who want to be safe. The soil temperature is the important thing. Some seeds will rot in cold soil, but some of the heartier lettuces will grow in fact, some prefer the colder weather. Check the seed packet directions.
Another mistake to make (I’ve done them all) is to indulge your planting instinct by just throwing out a few seeds. There must be a deep-seated agricultural gene in all of us that tells us it is time to plant. (Didn’t a group of Mexican soldiers disappear after winning a battle but lost the war because it was time to go home and plant their crops? Battle of Puebla. Cinco de Mayo. 1862). My friend wanted a few flowers around her tree, but she didn’t want to go to the trouble of turning over the soil, or fertilizing, mulching, and watering. She got the same results I got when I threw a few seeds out back to cover up a bare spot. Nothing!
You will hear people say. “I just don’t have a green thumb.” That’s funny. mine isn’t green either, but it may have some dirt under the fingernail. Another friend put her succulent plant in a dark corner and wondered why it didn’t flourish; Mother Nature would have given it ten hours a day of bright sunlight. It takes a bit of effort to determine what your plants need by way of moisture, light, and soil, whether they grow inside or outside. It helps to think about where the plant originated — the tropics. the desert, or a northern climate. Once you do that, they will say: “Oh, you just have a green thumb.”
So there we are: you have to follow Mother Nature’s seasons, and you have to help her out with a little extra work, or else she won’t help you. Dig the weeds, trim, prune, work the soil, make plans, but wait until the end of April at least before you star planting seeds outside.
