Seed catalogs rest in piles about my house. Lists, diagrams, notes from last season.... all the things that will coalesce into this year's garden seed orders. One of the difficulties for gardeners in a variable climate - like Virginia Beach's pseudo-southern, quasi-northern, rollercoaster weather - is in selecting varieties that will survive the changes in temperature that plague our early spring. It is the spring that is the hardest season for plants here, more so than the heavy heat of summer.
Many varieties of fruits and vegetables are triggered into early spring activity by a few days of 65+ degree weather, only to be hit hard when temperatures roll back into the twenties. (This is why many very "hardy" plants, like the arctic kiwi (Actinidia kolomitka and others fare worse in our variable spring weather than in colder climates where they wake up slowly in gradually warming weather.)
In addition, we all tend to hold off on planting until the spring warms up "just a tad", only to have it roll directly into hot weather - devastating to my plans for early sugar peas and sweet lettuces. Currently the garden is growing cabbages (which are not at ALL happy with the continuing damp), onions and garlic. All of these will be harvested and out of the raised beds by the time I need space for tomatoes and summer peppers.
January is for ordering seeds, taking advantage of any "early order" specials catalogs happen to be ordering. I do love the paper catalogs, even though I generally order online through the company's website. I love the photos - I love the illustrations even more. Mary Azarian's woodcuts were the inspiration for year of ordering from Cooks Garden. Besides, I can slap notes all over the paper catalogs - a service they have yet to add to website displays.
February is for turning the first gardens over thoroughly, mixing in the compost and chicken manure (thanks, girls!). Late February this year, my Sugar Snap peas will go in, along with seeds for bunching onions, the ones that really don't form decent bulbs but are wonderful in spring salads. With some protection, in the unheated greenhouse space, I'll sow trays of lettuce and mesclun mix for cut-and-come-again salad greens. Some of these sowings will become early transplants for the garden in late March, marking the areas where other lettuce will be sown in neat rows.
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