Here we are, near the end of February, and this month has finally shown us what winter in the mountains of western North Carolina is all about. Mother Nature fooled us a bit in December with some nice sun and halfway warm temps. But most of January and all of February has been cold and we’ve had several snowfalls – one for ten inches! Temps have been dipping down into the teens at night and high winds moan through the trees. Sigh. Where is spring???
Thank goodness for the Ag extension office planting guide that tells me it’s time to get some broccoli and cabbage seed started! Even if it’s only done indoors and only in little containers, there’s nothing like digging in some dirt to put a smile on your face. And this week we’ll have four days in a row of temperatures in the mid-forties to low fifties so I can hope that spring is near. For a good laugh about that, check out this month’s cartoon under “The Happy Homesteader.”
I won’t be using peat pellets (pictured above) once I use up what I already had on hand. After a little research, I found out that peat forms slowly and we are using up our planet’s available resource at an alarming rate. It will be regular seeding pots for me from now on. For some reason, I’ve always had better luck with Lacinato (or Dinosaur) kale when starting the seed indoors rather than direct sowing.
Back to the garden – none of our neighbors have planted peas in their gardens yet, but that same planting guide says it’s time – so that’s just what I did a few days ago! Using the guide in my handy-dandy Farmer’s Almanac, I followed the tradition of planting by the phase of the moon. The almanac said February 18th was a good day for planting above ground crops, so in went the peas. Hey, don’t laugh – my grandparents swore by planting above-ground and root crops according to what phase the moon was in and they always produced awesome vegetables with very few pest problems. We will see how well it works here –
