Vegetables
- Weeks 1-4: Season extending devices such as cold frames, hot beds, cloches and floating row covers will allow for an early start to the growing season.
- Weeks 1-4: Start onion seeds indoors now.
- Weeks 1-4: Run a germination test on seeds stored from previous years to see if they will still sprout.
- Weeks 1-4: Don’t work garden soils if they are wet. Squeeze a handful of soil. It should form a ball that will crumble easily. If it is sticky, allow the soil to dry further before tilling or spading.
- Weeks 2-4: Sow celery and celeriac seeds indoors now.
- Weeks 3-4: Sow seeds of broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and cabbage indoors now for transplanting into the garden later this spring.
- Weeks 3-4: If soil conditions allow, take a chance sowing peas, lettuce, spinach and radish. If the weather obliges, you will be rewarded with extra early harvests.
Fruits
- Weeks 1-4: Inspect fruit trees for tent caterpillar egg masses. Eggs appear as dark brown or gray collars that encircle small twigs. Destroy by pruning or scratching off with your thumbnail.
- Weeks 1-2: Collect scion wood now for grafting of fruit trees later in spring. Wrap bundled scions with plastic and store them in the refrigerator.
- Weeks 3-4: Grapes and bramble fruits may be pruned now.
- Weeks 3-4: Begin pruning fruit trees. Start with apples and pears first. Peaches and nectarines should be pruned just before they bloom.
- Weeks 3-4: When pruning diseased branches, sterilize tools with a one part bleach, nine parts water solution in between cuts. Dry your tools at day’s end and rub them lightly with oil to prevent rusting.
- Week 4: Established fruit trees can be fertilized once frost leaves the ground. Use about one-half pound of 12-12-12 per tree, per year of age, up to a maximum of 10 pounds fertilizer per tree. Broadcast fertilizers over the root zone staying at least one foot from the tree trunk.
