February Week 4

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

By: Kathi

Once again this week we need to get our seeds started. At 7-8 weeks from frost free date, its time to plant all your annuals, tomatoes and peppers. By the time your frost free date rolls around you will have slips to set out.

Things you will need:
Seeds
Seed starter mix or pellets
Dormant Oil/Horticultural Oil
Sprayer

The technique for planting seeds does not change, just what you are planting. Read the directions on the seed packet carefully. Some seeds require being exposed to light, others do not. If you do not plant the seeds at the proper depth, they most likely will not sprout.

If you are like me, you already have several trays full of plants, some ready to go into the row covers, others are still to young and tender. If you have seed trays with these plastic domes, watch them carefully. The domes allow the humidity to stay nice and high while the seeds are sprouting. During this period, that is a good thing, but once sprouted, that dome can be the death of your seedlings. Too much humidity will cause them to “damp off’. Damping off is where seed or soil bourn fungi are given the proper conditions to grow. I have tried every commercial packaged soil on the market, I think, and order seeds from many large sellers. This damping off fungi is in all of them. So you must start removing the dome off the seedlings to allow the very top surface of soil to dry out. Always water from the bottom. Even if you completely remove the dome, but keep the soil too wet your seeds will damp off. Do not try to rescue them. They are toast.

Right now, here in zone 6 the days are warming up to where they are above 40 degrees. You can see the tips of the trees turning red and the buds are beginning to swell on the fruit trees. Now is the time to spray your fruit trees, dogwoods, crab apples, and most any other tree or bush that can develop insect related damage. Do NOT spray Japanese Maples, Red maples, Cedars, Hickory or Walnut trees. You will likely kill them. Other than these, most everything, especially the fruit trees need to be sprayed to suffocate any insects that are wintering over in the bark. Spray the entire tree or bush including any buds that are forming. After spraying the bark will take on a slightly glossy appearance similar to having been waxed. Dormant oils, also called Horticultural Oils, or Superior Oils are inexpensive, easily applied.

Since horticultural oils kill insects mechanically, by suffocation, they cannot develop a resistance to it, making future generations of insects evolve into oil resistant critters.

Next week you will need:

Pre-emergents