Gardening Links

I was at Wal-Mart today and picked up some more of the .20 flower packets and some very nice bulbs for my shady hill - Lily of the Valley, Bleeding Hearts and mixed caladiums. I have all my seeds and plants either ordered or purchased now except the Little Finger carrots. I am thinking they are exclusive to Burpee so I may put together a small order there.

WM is not carrying Burpee this year. They are exclusive with the Ferry-Morris seeds plus the American Seed .20 packets. That is sad because I could always find a large variety of seed types there including the Burpee & BH&G seeds. Even the co-op only had Ferry-Morris and the "by the pound" items.

I have to spend tomorrow getting my water hooked up and recouperating from today's trip so for now I will just pass on some great links I have tracked down.

Enjoy,
Linda B:)


Find your zone and last frost dates:

http://www.burpee.com/ancillary/zonefinder.do

Type in your last frost date here and it will fill in the dates you should do each chore:

http://bioarray.us/Skippy's planting calendar.html

An extensive step by step, month by month calendar for planning your garden from University of Georgia. This is for Georgia Zone 8, adjust by the number of weeks needed for your Zone. I am in Zone 5/6 so I have to add 3-4 weeks to this plan:

http://pubs.caes.uga.edu/caespubs/pubcd/L174.htm

Old Farmer's Almanac gives you a planting chart based on phases of the moon. Just type in your zip code for your zone:

http://www.almanac.com/garden/plantingtable/index.php

For fun you can also check out Old Farmer's Almanac's astrological charts to give you the best dates for everything from harvesting crops to starting a diet or having your hair cut:)

http://www.almanac.com/astrology/

Tons of links for gardening help at The Garden Helper - just about everything you can think to ask about:

http://www.thegardenhelper.com/guide1.html

Spring is Here!!!!!

Oh no, here it is several days into spring and I don't really have it together yet. I have been to the Co-op and picked up a few plants (broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, onions and a few strawberry plants) plus seeds at various places. The bad part, I haven't set the plants out yet. I am hoping to get them into pots over the next week plus get my lettuce flats seeded.

I still can't drive and was worried about enough potting soil. However, a trek through the yard this evening has rounded up 4 leftover bags from last year plus enough pots filled with dirt that can be dumped and re-potted to take care of my cold crops.

Immediately after picking up the plants our temps dropped to single digits again and then we had a few roller coaster weeks of warm temps through the weekdays, rain on Fri and Sat which turned into sleet and 3-4 inches of snow by Sunday. Last week was mostly nice - about 60 degrees days and 40 nights - so I have moved the plants to the deck. I had to cover them for a few days when we dove below freezing again this weekend but they seem to be hanging in there since it didn't get below 29.

I am also behind on my seed orders but plan to finish that this week. I am trying to add more fruit to my diet especially cherries and blueberries. Both are great antioxidants and very good for you. Parks has a lovely small blueberry that can be grown in containers that I am considering. They also have a lovely fig that looks similar to the brown turkey figs. It is also small and can be grown in containers. Both are rated for colder climates.

I am off to finish those orders. Temps are in the 50's & 60's right now but it is steady rain so not much to do outside right now.