cloches

JANUARY GARDENING CALENDAR

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JANUARY GARDENING CALENDAR

 

This is the time to plan your 2017 garden.  Seed racks will be in garden stores soon.  Nowadays there are several companies selling organically grown seeds, some of them grown right here in the Flathead area!  January is an excellent time to test the germination rate on your saved seeds.  You can get a rough estimate of percentage if you sprout some now.  Put ten seeds folded into a moist paper towel.  Place the moist towel on a plate, loosely covered with plastic wrap or waxed paper and put it in a warm place to test germ.  The top of the refrigerator is a convenient spot to do this.  If 9 out of 10 seeds germinate you can bet on about a 90% germ.  If a variety germinates poorly, you can plant extra seeds if you have them, or buy fresh seed.  Also, check past records and eliminate any varieties that you did not like, or did not do well in your garden.  Composted manure can be spread on vegetable beds, right on top of the snow if you want.  Spring melt and rains will draw nutrients down into the soil.  This month is a good time to repair garden tools, and obtain or make plant supports and cold frames.  Locate frames and hotbeds for winter/spring growing outside in sunny, protected locations.

Check stored fruits and vegetables for spoilage.  Watch cold frames; admit air on days when the temperature goes above freezing and be sure to cover them at night.  Clean and weed lettuces and other winter greens growing in cold tunnels or frames.  Use leftover Christmas tree boughs to mulch perennials, strawberries, roses, etc.

Prepare any planned garden designs.  Be sure to rotate planting locations of vegetables and flowers every season for best health and disease prevention.

Indoors, sow strawberries and perennials early.  Beginning the 15th, sow cauliflower and cabbage seed inside for growing in frames.  Sow eggplant, onions, leeks, and early peppers.  Sow perennial herbs: oregano, thyme, feverfew, Greek oregano, lavender, rosemary, chives, chamomile, hyssop, horehound, catnip, parsley, rue, lemon balm and salvia.

Harvest winter greens from frames and tunnels as well as spinach, lettuce, kale, chard, onions, parsnips, leeks and carrots.

Sow primrose and auricula seed in a cool greenhouse; protect auriculas from severe frost and rains.  Ventilate auriculas and other alpines in the greenhouse—keep plants on the dry side as they will be dormant.  Prepare to top dress containerized plants (in a cool greenhouse) with manure or compost in February.

Ventilate sweet violet frames daily; pick off dead foliage and keep the glass clean.  Transfer potted sweet violets, pansies and violas to the greenhouse to flower.  Other plants (previously potted) to force inside now include: honeysuckle, roses, jasmine, carnations, sweet William, wallflowers, stocks, narcissus, ranunculus, early dwarf tulips and lily of the valley.  Take cuttings of geraniums and fuchsias.  Force potted strawberries (potted in Sept.) in hotbeds or greenhouse.  Check winter mulches and covers; mound up snow to keep perennials and roses protected from dry cold.  Have a great gardening year in 2017!

 

Cloches and Cold Frames

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We have to face the fact that here in much of the Northwest we have a short frost-free growing season.  Those living at higher elevations have an even shorter growing period.  Most gardeners in the area look for ways to extend the vegetable growing season: everyone wants to have ripe eggplants, tomatoes, squash, melons, etc. before the season ends and frosts return.  A great help for gardeners is to purchase or construct covers, or cloches, to protect our plants early and late.  In the nineteenth century, glass bell-shaped cloches were used, as well as cold frames glazed with glass.

Today, one popular and inexpensive alternative cover is a polyethelyne tunnel, a series of metal hoops over which plastic is stretched.  The spring vegetable season can be started up to four weeks earlier with tunnels.  The same is true of fall, when it is possible to have crops ready up to six weeks later, because the soil will be warmer in fall and hold its heat longer if cloched.  Tunnels are quite useful for heat-loving crops in our frequently cool summers; cantaloupe, watermelons, squash, tomatoes, eggplant, and cucumbers are some examples.  Floating row covers will also protect plants at night from colder temperatures.  The heaviest will protect plants from frost up to seven or eight degrees of frost.

Plastic jugs, with the caps taken off and bottoms cut out, work well for small plants planted out before late frosts occur.  Covers can be placed before nightfall and removed during the day.  Gluttonous and ubiquitous cutworms will be discouraged from chewing by the subterranean sharp edges of the jugs; this is important because these creatures feed at night.  Large metal cans and paper milk jugs are other inexpensive cloches.

Cold frames are excellent cloches or protectors of young plants.  The soil inside them stays much warmer at night than the outside air.  If mats or fabric floating row covers are used to cover plants they will protect crops to lower temperatures than uncovered plastic tunnels or jugs.  I constructed my own cold frames, though they can be purchased from many sources at a considerable price!  An important factor with cold frames is to open them in the morning as soon as temperatures permit and close them before it gets too cold, in late afternoon or early evening.

Paper, glass, water-filled plastic covers or wax coated cloches are other quick solutions to save plants if a late frost is expected.  In Montana, in a mountain valley at an altitude of 3,000 feet I have used cloches to save bleeding hearts, primroses, lilies and early spring flowers from sudden freezes that would have set them back considerably.

Have a great spring!