February Week 1

Organic Gardening Calendar
11 Weeks to frost free date in zone 6

By: Kathi

Every week up until your first frost free date, start seeds indoors according to the package directions. With cool crop vegetables like lettuce, spinach, and English peas only plant the number of plants it takes to feed you for a week or two at the most. If you have those big row covers start your seeds a couple of weeks earlier than the package says.

This week again, it’s time to mow.

Things you will need:
Lawn Mower

Where I live, the Narcissus have broken ground. And since I believe in getting as much out of a garden plot as possible (there’s that lazy streak again) I plant as many different types of plants together as possible.

For example, this week the (Liriope) monkey grass gets mowed. The timing is critical because in the monkey grass bed Narcissus, reblooming bearded iris, Asiatic Lilies, Lycoris haywardii and Lycoris radiata are all planted together. If we get a warm spell, the Narcissus will grow too tall to be mowed over without damaging them.

Let us assume you are planting a new flower bed or refurbishing an old one. You want to select plants to commingle that will give you foliage and/or flowering plants whose bloom time or peak display periods are distributed throughout the growing season. Personally I prefer beds that mix it up rather than the same plant repeated throughout the bed.

When you select which plants to put together there are several important things to consider. There is no order here. You must have all of them to select a group of plants that will succeed together.
Amount of light: Do not mix shade loving plants with sunflowers. One of them will not make it. This is almost impossible to affect, so don’t bother trying, unless you are working on a 10 year plan for shade and are planting trees.

Amount of water: Bog plants and dessert cacti don’t mix very well. You can, of course start with a dry spot and water artificially, but who needs the work? Don’t bother doing that either.

PH: Plants may like acidic soil or basic soil. If your soil is neutral, you can probably have fair success with most things. But there are those plants like blueberries that will not survive outside of a very acid soil. PH is easily and cheaply adjusted, but if you are truly lazy like me, you pretty much stick with what you got. Plants in microclimates that suit them always do better. Always.

Size: This, I think is the hardest of all the concepts to master. When you plant with proper spacing, the bed will look empty. Trust me on this; plant your bulbs, shrubs, and perennials twice as far apart as the tag tells you to. Nurseries are in business to sell product. You’ll end up digging it up. Definitely not lazy.

The second tier considerations are:

Bloom time: Select plants that will bloom at different times. I like to combine Narcissus, reblooming bearded iris, Asiatic Lilies, Lycoris haywardii and Lycoris radiata with monkey grass. (You thought I had forgotten about the Liriope- “monkey grass” didn’t you?)

What does the plant look like when it’s not at its peak? Monkey grass makes a great border along concrete sidewalks. It grows about 12 inches tall and produces a uniform manicured look. It looks good all year, but once a year it must be mowed. Mine never turns completely brown during the winter, so I leave it in place until the Narcissus first break ground. Then generally this week, I set the mower on the highest setting and mow the monkey grass. It leaves a very nice level finish and opens up the ground to sunlight to begin to warm the soil.

a. In my yard the buttercups start up by mid February and are beginning to bloom by March 1. Narcissus’ come in many varieties that bloom over a 2 month period. Plant different colors and sizes, but spread them out. Narcissus leaves turn brown and hang around for a couple of months. Do not cut off the leaves after they bloom. The leaves feed the bulbs for next year’s blooms. As I said, their leaves turn dark, - slowly. Spread the bulbs out so there won’t be big clumps of dying leaves. A scattered plume distributed about the bed looks better because the monkey grass can conceal small clumps better than big clumps. To expedite the removal of the Narcissus leaves, I take scissors and trim off ONLY that part that has died back. I admit, not the laziest thing to do, but well worth it.

b. The bearded iris bloom next in late April. Repeat bloomers will bloom again during the summer. Same deal, after they bloom cut back the bloom stalk. Later if the leaves turn brown, you can trim them, but more likely they need to be treated with beneficial nematodes for Iris Borers.

c. Then the Asiatic and Oriental Lilies start blooming in June and if you’ve selected your varieties well they will continue to bloom through July. As soon as they quit blooming I dead head them and like the buttercups, snip them back as they die down.

a. Lycoris are the best for out of bloom looks. From mid spring to August or September there are no leaves. Then overnight a bloom stalk will pop up. These absolutely look better in clumps of 5 or more. As soon as the blooms fade, cut the stalks down. In the fall when everything else is dying back, the leaves will sprout and at least here in zone 6, will stay green all winter.

All of this was to get back to mowing the monkey grass. With the proper mix, you can do very little work over the growing season, have lots of blooms coming and going, and never have to replant that area. The older it gets the better it looks. A good dose of bone meal once or twice a year will make it sing.

If you are real good you have a bagger on your mower. Free Mulch. No mess to clean up. For me, I bag my monkey grass clippings then spread them evenly out over that new bed I made last week.

Next week we will start to move the early crops out to the cold frame or row covers that we put up last month.

Next week you will need:
Soil thermometer
Broccoli slips
Onion and Chive bulbs
Organic vegetable fertilizer
Bone meal