Slow down gardening in February
February in the Flea Market garden
It’s February in the garden and the soil is usually too wet and cold for much garden digging and planting. Gardeners have found that digging and even stepping on water saturated planting beds compacts the soil and damages the good fungi, called mycorrhizae (from myco meaning fungal and rhiza meaning root). It’s the white web=like matter that you find when digging in the garden sometimes.
Indoor activities like sorting seeds, planning, reading and writing with a hot cup of tea nearby is the thing to do. Psychologists agree that we need the down times between the busy periods of our lives to recharge our batteries and refresh our spirits.
Most effective planning tool: Make a short list of things to do for the next day to get your self going! Most big jobs can be put off for later.
A Winter walk with my Corgi, Maggie. A shameless opportunity to show her cute little ‘fluffy butt.’
- Take a slow walk in the garden. Stick to paths, though, to avoid squashing the fragile soil in your flower beds. Try thinking up a poem about what you see there.
Starting my ‘winter sown’ seeds
- If you need to garden, try wintersowing!
Take care of your favorite tools
- Keep tools and equipment out of the rain and moisture. Shovels and hoes and trowels can stand in a tub of sand with some motor oil added. It knocks off the dirt and prevents rust. Sharpen and oil your garden tools. You can use WD-40 to loosen stuck clippers.
- Browse seed and garden catalogs. Search online if you are not getting these mailed. In no time you’ll be seeing signs of Spring.
Reading gardening, design, and landscaping books. Amazon used books are very low cost and shipping is about $4.00 a book. Our favorite Flea Market Gardening books are all listed by topic in our “FMG Shop page” called “Let’s Shop!” These are the ones we’ve mentioned on our page or that you have suggested!Advertisement
Books We Love at FMG!
Junk Garden books
Gardening books
Flea Market Shoppin’ books tips and tricks
Lifestyle & Home books
Garden Craft books
Fairy garden books
Landscape and design books
Photography books
Essay books
Click Planted junk, an awesome book!
Click Succulents Simplified
- Planning garden improvements for the coming year with a friend or spouse. A pile of rocks plus a friend can make a Spring rock garden!
- Weed the winter garden. Bring a garden fork or cultivator with you on your walks.
Myra Glandon’s cat in a Zen-like pose?
- On sunny days, wrap up and find a sunbeam to sit in. It works for cats and it will work for you!
Jeanne Sammons’ garden journal
- Keep a journal of plants in your flower beds. Plan what plants need to be moved this Spring.
- Protect tender plants from frosts by pulling them under the house eaves or in the shed or garage.
- Continue to feed hungry birds.
Chalk Farm Home ‘forced’ peach blossoms
Prune flowering and fruiting trees and shrubs when you see the buds swell. Bring flowering branches inside and put them in a vase. They’ll bloom! I can’t tell you how magical these blooms can be in mid-Winter!
