Page 4 • The ENUMCLAW Courier-Herald • Wednesday, March 13, 2013
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Time is right to plant cool-season vegetables Marianne Binetti will offer a seminar on “Adding Curb Appeal and Color to the Landscape” at 9 a.m. March 23 at Windmill Gardens in Sumner. To sign up call 253863-5843 or visit www.windmillgarden.com. This is the week to plant cool-season vegetables and add some instant color with early-blooming perennials. Vegetables that sprout best in cold soil include peas, carrots, lettuce, onions, beets, radish, spinach and Swiss chard. The secret to early planting depends more on how quickly your soil drains than the calendar date. If you have sticky, slow-draining clay soil you will need to wait another month to seed even the cool-season veggies listed above. Clay soil means wet feet and no vegetable likes to have wet feet on a cold night. Gardeners with raised beds, containers filled with potting soil or soil that has been improved with compost over the years have fluffy, loose soil that drains quickly. They can seed directly into the soil now and enjoy fresh
greens in six to eight weeks. If instant color is what you dream about during your spring fevers than take thee to a nursery and choose from the blooming inspiration like primroses, hellebores, pansies, violas and sprouted bulbs of daffodils, tulips and hyacinths. You can plant any of these flowers directly into the ground or into container gardens now and enjoy months of color before replacing these early bloomers with summer annuals or bedding plants. In our cool, summer climate some of the spring bloomers will continue to flower all summer long. I am confused about when to plant seeds into my vegetable garden. You say to read and follow the seed pack, but what I read is “plant as soon as the soil can be worked in the spring.” I have no idea what that means! Why can’t they just print a planting date on the seed pack? P., email
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The Compleat Home Gardener Marianne Binetti Columnist
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Gardeners have been gambling on when to plant for generations and outguessing the weather is part of this daring game of chance. There is no exact planting date for seeds because gardening is more of an art than a science – and knowing your soil and predicting the weather determines when to plant. The simple answer is to grab a fist full of soil and squeeze. Now open your hand. If the soil stays formed into a ball or if water drips from between your fingers then your soil drains poorly or contains a lot of clay and it cannot be “worked” or dug up. Working wet soil destroys the structure or air spaces and this will result in seeds that are more likely to rot. Well-drained soils
that crumble and fall apart after a good squeeze allow air and water to pass through and seeds can more easily sprout and send down roots. In western Washington the planting date for cool season crops (leaf crops, peas, beets, and carrots) is anytime from mid-March until mid-May. I would like to fill my empty porch containers with flowers that will be blooming for Easter. I would like to use the potted tulips and daffodils that I see for sale at the nursery. My question is, how long will they stay in bloom? T.S., Maple Valley Hop right in and celebrate Easter early by investing in presprouted tulips, daffodils and other spring-blooming bulbs. If you choose bulbs that have tight buds and no blooms you can be assured of color for the next three to four weeks. This color flash will only last if you keep the plants cool and moist. I like to leave the bulbs in the plastic nursery pot and sink the entire pot into a larger container. Add pansies and
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primroses around the sides of the center pot and be sure to water both the center container and the side plantings. Then, in a few months when the spring bulbs are done you can lift the pot, spent bulbs and all, right out of the container and replace with summer bloomers. You can even reuse the spent bulbs by tapping them out of the plastic nursery pot, separating the clumps of bulbs and replanting them into welldrained soil with the fading foliage still attached. I am going to replant a sunny slope using boulders to create a rock garden. I saw a photo of a spectacular display of color and the plants listed were pink and lavender creeping phlox, basket-of-gold, deep pink aubrietia and white candytuft. Will these plants survive here, where can I buy them and how easy are they to grow? N.G., Olympia Yes, all these rock stars will thrive. You can find creeping phlox, candytuft, aubrietia and basketof-gold at local nurseries now and they are simple to grow
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– but only if you provide them with great drainage on a sunny or partly-shaded slope and remember that even drought-resistant rock garden plants need moisture the first summer so they can establish a root system. You can tidy up these spring bloomers by shearing them back by one half once the flowers fade – often this early summer crew cut will convince these colorful characters to give a summer-long encore performance. • • • Marianne Binetti has a degree in horticulture from Washington State University and is the author of “Easy Answers for Great Gardens” and several other books. For book requests or answers to gardening questions, write to her at: P.O. Box 872, Enumclaw, 98022. Send a selfaddressed, stamped envelope for a personal reply. For more gardening information, she can be reached at her Web site, www.binettigarden.com. Copyright for this column owned by Marianne Binetti.
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