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Gardening with Job's Nursery
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Greetings!
 I would like to thank everyone who saw us at the Home and Garden Show booth. We had a lot of fun welcoming spring by showing off a lot of interesting plants and early spring color. We felt it was a great show full of lots of good ideas for all sorts of home projects. This month is the start of spring for us. We will begin bringing plants in, unpacking our plants from winter protection in the growing operation, and finally pottery. It's a busy month but we are happy spring is coming. Our hours for March are Monday to Saturday 9 to 5. Don't forget to check out our 2012 Garden Class Schedule!
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What to do for March in Gardening
A lot of things can be done in March, its a great time to plant perennials, trees, fruit trees and shrubs while they are still dormant. If you not sure what a plant looks like, you can wait for April through June when they leaf out. March is just the beginning of Spring and a great time of the year to plant. It's a little early for a lot of vegetables to be planted outside but you can get your peppers, tomatoes and eggplants started inside.
You can still do your thinning prunes at this time of the year as long as the plant has not leafed out. Click here for a list of plants that benefit from a winter prune. We like to wait until April 1 to fertilize so go ahead and get your supplies now but wait to apply the fertilizers when its a little warmer and the plants are actively taking nutrients. This also goes for the Annual Systemic Drenches too.
March is a windy month and typically this wind dries out the soil and foliage, it is best to water all evergreens and plants that are newly planted or fall planted. The middle of March is a great time to give them a drink of water. Here is a list of plants to water.
Finally early March is still a great time to apply dormant sprays or fungicides to clean up over wintering disease spores or insects. Be careful if a plant is green tipping (leaves are emerging from the bud) that you use these sprays in their growing season application rates on the label. If the buds are still sealed you can apply the sprays at their dormant application rates. Always spray above 40 degrees.
You can apply pre-emergent herbicides, like Crabgrass control or Preen, at this time of the year but apply these right before a good rain, so the water activates the product properly to prevent weeds. For me I wait until the irrigation systems are on, so I can control the amount of water to make sure it is watered in properly and I don't have to worry about my pets getting into it while I wait for rain.
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Meet the Witch Hazel
 This plant was popular at the Home and Garden show where a couple of booths including ours demonstrated this neat plant. A lot of people had never seen it so I thought it would be a great time to introduce the Witch Hazel. Witch Hazel is related to the Parrotia and Fothergilla. All of these plants have great structural interest; where the branches go about their own directions and provide fragrant but uniquely styled flowers. For Witch Hazel the petals resembles finely grated cheese or shredded coconut where it is very fine and curly. These flowers cover the branches so the show is very noticeable in Late February and Early March. This is the first shrub to flower in the spring beating the Forsythia. Witch Hazel also possess an awesome fall show with yellows, reds, oranges and purples to finish out it's growing season. They generally are a large shrub that matures to over 15 feet tall but about 10 to 15 wide, however its not in a big hurry to mature to that size; so trimming it to size is possible. Witch Hazel is a plant that likes moist, nutrient rich soil; this is achieved by watering regularly and fertilizing routinely (about 3 times a year) as well as mulching with compost or bark to keep them fed. We will have three varieties and colors in this spring to look at.
Arnold's Promise is a brilliant yellow flower with intense yellow fall color Diane is red to orange red flowers and a fall color in the reds and purples. Jelena is an orange variety with fall color toned to the reds and oranges.
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Vegetable Planting Basics
With spring on its way its time to start working in the Vegetable Garden. Vegetable gardens start with prepping the soil. First clean it up, if you had disease issues last year throw away all of the old foliage and plants. If you did not have disease problems then it is safe to work the plant matter back into the soil. For the soil, put more nutrients in by adding about 1 to 2 inches of compost into the ground and turn it six inches deep. We carry the Harvest Supreme that is rich with nutrients and ideal for veggie gardens but people have been successful with home made composts for decades. The rule of thumb is If you invest in your ground and put good nutrients in it; you will have good crops coming out.
Then plan out your crops, are you going to grow greens, corn, tomatoes or is it more exotic? Whatever it is, you want to make sure you are planting at the right time of spring so you don't have to restart the garden so much or have those transplants ready to be planted at the right time. Mother's Day (May 13th) in the Tri-Cities is the average day to claim freedom from frosts. So use the week of Mother's Day as the base line of when to start your transplants inside, directly plant seed in the garden and when to plant the transplants or nursery starts outside. Here is a guide for planting Vegetables using Mother's Day as the guideline.
The temperature of the soil is what gets a lot of things growing best, not so much the air temperature. If the soil is too cold for that species the seed or transplants just sit there waiting for it to warm up. Different species respond differently to soil temperature peas will germinate in a lot cooler ground than corn will for example. Using the frost free day as the guideline works with this because generally you soil warms as we go later into spring based on the longer days and warmer air temperature. To better utilize your germination success, get a soil thermometer and plant by how mother nature is working not just by the calendar.
You can also plant by the phase of the moon which is an old technique that my Great Grandmother used for her vegetable garden. This is were you rest at some phases of the moon, plant root vegetables at another and plant above ground crops at a different phase of the moon. You still go by the Mother's Day rule but are selective on what is planted by the moon as a reference.
Just remember to have fun with vegetable gardening and with these starting tips you will have success.
Here is some great sources for vegetable garden plant dates
Planting Veggies in the Tri_Cities
Planting by the Moon link
Farmer Almanac Gardening by the Moon
Soil Temperature Planting Charts
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March Gardening Classes
Here is our 2012 Garden Classes Schedule. Seating is limited, RSVP for the classes so we have a chair waiting for you! March 17th- Square Foot Gardening 12:00 p.m. Cost: $10 per person
Do you like growing your own food? Learn to grow by the square foot for both low maintenance, controlled crop size and space efficiency. Susan Gray with the Square Foot Gardening Foundation will go through the process. For more information on Square Foot Gardening go to: http://www.squarefootgardening.com/ March 24 How to Care for Fruit Trees 10am Cost: $10 per person
Alex Job will be discussing techniques and care requirements for fruit trees to have great fruit, while being a good neighbor to our local orchard industry. Learn which tree fruit are harder to take care of and the ones that are easier. He will also talk about organic and traditional techniques for fruit trees. March 31-Straw Bale Gardening 10:00 am Cost: $10 per person
Eileen with the Master Gardeners would like to demonstrate a space saving way to vegetable garden using straw bales. It's a technique using a bale of straw as the planter. She will go over the benefits of this technique and how to do it; to make this space saving raised garden work for you.
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Well that's all for now, remember to Like Us on Facebook or Follow us on Twitter to see Foliage for Friday, How-To Photo Albums and Care Notes as I work on them.
Thank you for your interest
Alex Job
Job's Nursery |
February and March Hours Monday-Saturday 9 to 5
4072 Columbia River Road
Pasco, Washington 99301
509-547-4843
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