Things to Do in February
Vegetable Garden
If you are planning a vegetable garden, now is the time to start:
- Growing seeds indoors, so that you can transplant the plants into the garden as soon as possible.
- Check soil for moisture. Even though earliness may be important, do not work or plow the garden if the soil is wet. One way to determine if the soil is too wet, is to squeeze a handful of soil. If the soil packs into a tight, sticky ball then it is too wet, and tillage should be put off until the soil dries out. If the soil crumbles fairly easily, after it has been squeezed it is all right to plow.
- Finish your bed preparation. Compost, Lava sand, Texas green sand, Humate and other minerals can be added.
- If you are going to plant early vegetables, start on a small scale, and make sure you have means for protecting these transplants on cold nights. Try building a cold frame or using Row Cover™ to protect these plants. If daytime temperatures are to rise above 50 remove the plastic covering. Temperatures under the plastic can get so hot the plants can die.
- Seeds of some vegetable varieties can be planted as soon as the soil temperatures begin to warm up in the spring. Most cool season vegetable seed will germinate after the soil reaches 40 degrees. But improved germination will occur as the soil warms to 50 degrees. Some of the early vegetables and herbs, include broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, onion sets, parsley, radishes, spinach, turnips, thyme, rosemary, cilantro, chives, potatoes, red skin potatoes can be planted earlier, then white skin can be planted later in the season.
Excessive rainfall will wash or leach out nitrogen from the soil. Side dressing your plants on a regular basis with organic fertilizers containing high nitrogen such as cottonseed meal and feather meal is beneficial. Always water thoroughly after application ensuring that foliage does not burn.
Roses
Trim your shrub roses around Valentine’s Day and, if need be, transplant them now if you need to move them. Reasons for moving a rose: they got bigger then you thought they would, they do not receive enough sun light, leaves are covered with black spot and are not in a well drained area.
Prepare a new bed or raised area for your roses with a good compost and lava sand to ensure good drainage.
After trimming or transplanting your roses feed them with sul-po-mag, cottonseed meal, and work compost in the area trying not to disturb the roots. Foliar feed with Kelp, Fish Emulsion, apple cider vinegar, molasses and Epsom salts.
Trees
Finish trimming all trees now. Remember that they do not HAVE to be trimmed. You are trimming them because the lower branches are a hazard to pedestrians, the house, etc.
Branches are rubbing during high winds and will brake off or die. Or you have dead branches, or branches that block a view for security reasons.
Landscaping
Decide on landscape to improve problem areas or make areas more attractive. Do I trim trees to let more light in or do I landscape using plants that require shade.
Contact a Landscape designer for help. Contact Carol Feldman.
Weeds
If you have a heavy infestation of weeds in your grassy areas you can apply Corn Gluten Meal. CGM works as a pre-emergent as well as a fertilizer.
CGM works in the following manner. Soon after sprouting, plants send out secondary roots or feeder roots that draw nutrients from the soil. CGM stops these roots from developing, without these feeder roots the seedlings die. CGM also acts as a fertilizer with a 9-1-1 ratio. We recommend Humate to be applied in conjunction with CGM for it’s mineral content. Humate works as a microbial stimulator with a high concentration of organic acids, specifically humic acid, which improves the plants ability to take in vital nutrients.
Fertilizatioin
Fertilize your lawn and garden at this time. Use a balanced natural fertilizer at a rate of 20 pounds per thousand square feet.
Observation
Get in the habit of observing your garden. Don’t be embarrassed to get on your hands and knees to look at the back side of leaves for insects or damage caused by insects or the effects of water.
Birds
Feed the birds regularly and see that they have water. Birds like suet, fruit, nuts, and bread crumbs as well as bird seed. If you enjoy attracting birds to your garden, plant trees and shrubs that both provide cover and produce food. Crabapple, dogwood, holly, pyracantha, wax myrtle and hawthorn are great plants for attracting birds. A WaterWorks Bird Dripper supplies fresh water to any bird bath.
Soil Test
Get a soil test from:
Texas Plant and Soil Lab
RR& Box 2134
Edinburg, TX 78539
Phone: 210-383-0739
Fax: 210-383-0730
Do You Really Want Success?
by Karen Gilley
I would like to tell you about a couple that came to me for help converting their new lawn into a Wildlife Habitat. These folks has visions of bright red cardinals and golden finches flitting around, butterflies of every hue floating across the lawn, hummers buzzing around a real Peaceable Kingdom. They went on to tell me that the previous owner had planted a Pecan Tree in front and a Bur Oak in back, which were by now large trees. Not much to start with but the quality of tree were good.
I began with what we knew we needed—food, water and shelter. We laid out a small map of the property and decided to install a small pond which was only two inches deep at one end, this would serve as a bath and drinking area. Because they had a Labrador we decided not to put in fish. Along the north fence we decided on a mix hedgerow of Nellie R. Stevens Holly, Abelias, Southern Wax Myrtle and Pyracantha to provide food and shelter. On the east fence I suggested Passion Vine in one area and Coral Honeysuckle in another to attract Humming birds. For the south side fence they wanted to put in a perennial bed. A perfect spot for a Mexican Plum and a Yaupon Holly because of the needed height and food for the birds. We threw in some native grasses for the seed heads and then filled in with perennials to attract butterflies and hummingbirds. We chose Buddlias, Yarrow, Frikartii Aster, Flame Acanthus, Echinacea and several varieties of Salvia and Lantana, all of which are low maintenance.
Under their big Bur Oak we decided on a Carolina Buckthorn and a Rough Leaf Dogwood for small understories, then we filled in with some Monarda, Lobelias and Pigeonberry.
The wife said that she wanted to have some herbs too. I asked her if she was going to maintain them organically? It would be cruel to entice all these creatures to your garden and then poison them. She promised me that she would stay organic.
I went on to suggest mixing herbs with her perennials making an attractive combination and suggested some for container growing.
This sounds like a major project and they worked like dogs. Over the course of the first summer they completed their landscape and added birdfeeders and birdhouses.
Last summer she came in and was madder then hell. Her and her husband and their dog had gone to Colorado for a month, leaving their 20 year old son to take care of things. She said it was a disaster! All that work down the drain. After calming her down I found out that she was disgusted to find a snake in the pond and slimy little frogs on her porch at night! What seems like hundreds of those nasty hairy squirrels running everywhere and her son had even seen some bats out there.
I would not call it a disaster, I said, that is what I would call a success. Whhhhattt? she questioned. Well you probably had small mice attracted to the fallen birdseed and they are what brought the snake in. The frogs found a pond to breed in and stayed around to eat the slugs and other bugs—you don’t see many of those do you?
“No, no I haven’t” she noted.
Since you did such a good job of attracting butterflies, I bet they thought it was a good place for their babies to grow up and it was the caterpillars that ate your parsley, dill and passion vine. If you didn’t have so many birds, I bet your plants would have been totally eaten, instead of just munched on. Since you are so close to the lake, you are naturally going to have more bugs—those bats are just doing by night, what your martins are doing by day. As for the squirrels, you did have your bird feeders under your Bur Oak right?
"Well yeah," she said.
Well that Bur Oak and your pecan are just living squirrel feeders. You see animals don’t understand property lines or prejudice, that’s just things humans think. But not to worry—now that your dog is back home, he will probably chase most of the squirrels away. I bet he eats most of the frogs and probably the snake too, and probably keeps the birds away more too. Then all you’ll have to worry about are the mice, slugs, snails, caterpillars and a lot more insect problems.
After a few minutes of very deep thought the husband came to me, on the way out, and he thought maybe he’d build a dog run on the side of the house instead of a rose garden.
There Ain’t No Fury as That of a Woman Scorned by Hell Nino
Over the last couple of years, I have really tried to delegate landscape design and consultation to one of our professional associates, but one day last month this sad looking man came in to our nursery and started telling me that with all the rain we have had from El Nino, the inside of his house had flooded and all the plants that he installed last fall were deader than the squashed armadillo on Highway 287 after a convoy of 20 cattle trucks drove over it. I offered to take his name and number and pass it on to Carol Feldman, our Landscape designer, but he said he needed me to go out and go out quickly! He was upset and his wife was maaaaaaaaddddddd! He explained to me that his wife had wanted Rohde’s to come out and prepare the beds and install their new landscape, but he figured he could do it himself and save a lot of money. And now he was in deep trouble.
I started to feel sorry for this guy and my curiosity started to grow, so I told him that I would be glad to go to his house and see what was the big deal. Because he looked crazed by his frustration and scared of his wife, I decided that I should not go by myself. Alfred, my lard watchdog, came along.
As soon as I arrived at his house, his wife came out to listen to us discuss the problem.
It appeared that one of his problems was that he placed too much soil over the foundation and that would explain how the water got inside the house. I wanted to take a closer look, so I walked into the bed and sank to my knees. My brave dog Alfred, who was like my shadow, walked in next to me and disappeared quickly into this murky pit.
As I was reaching around blindly trying to find Alfred the homeowner stood at the edge of this death trap without showing any effort of help. His wife could stand it no more, and I could see that she was running to help me, but as she got near her husband she plowed into him sending him face first into this muck hole while screaming, “Don’t just stand there! Do Something!”
Oh, he did something all right. He disappeared, and all that was left visible of him were his ankles and shoes. By this time I had scooped Alfred up from the grips of sure death and made it out with him to dry ground. I placed Alfred safely on the ground. “Cookie,” I said, as I commanded him to stay and turned back to help the homeowner who was now pushing himself out of the muck and looked mad as hell.
His wife started to laugh and then cry and said how sorry she was, but that she was upset about the whole thing and she did not mean to do what she did..... yadayadayada!
I was preparing to leave, wishing that I had sent Carol out to do this consultation and swearing that this was my last one. The homeowners who were now lovey dovey towards each other pleaded with me not to leave. I decided that since I was here I might as well let them know what I thought about...their landscape problems.
I asked Mr. Not Clean why he had dug out all the native dirt and why he had used peat moss as a back fill?
He told me that a book he had read said that for the best bed preparation remove all soil to a depth of three feet and back fill with peat moss. He said the book was about landscaping in Georgia with azaleas. I pointed out that not one of his dead plants appeared to be azaleas, and asked him why he was using a book from Georgia when we were standing in the middle of Dallas, TEXAS?
“Well, we just moved from Georgia and it was the only reference book I had.”
Now if you ask any one of my children what the initial C stands for in my name they will say “Cheap.” But I think that my title has been lost to this guy. He wanted to save money so much that he did not even buy a book to help him do his work properly.
I went on to tell them what I would do to correct these mistakes:
- Remove all the peat moss and start to backfill up to three inches below the foundation with the original soil that was removed.
- When he got to that level he was to start incorporating compost and some of that peat moss (just because he had it) into the soil to bring the level no higher then one inch below the foundation line, making sure that he had positive drainage away from the house and toward the front of the beds.
- Make sure that the weep holes on the first layer of brick are clean, that no debris clogs these holes.
- Replant only after you are sure that the soil has settled thoroughly using TEXAS Native Plants or plants that are well adapted. Try books like Howard Garrett’s Plants for Texas or Sally Wasowski’s Native Texas Plants.
When I got home the peat moss on Alfred was already dry and the poor dog could hardly walk. I was muddy and covered in peat moss from the waist down. As soon as I started to walk into the house my darling wife met me at the door and screamed out loud. “Puuuupy, what happened to you. Alfred, are you okay?” And then towards me she screamed, “What did you do to my dog? Where have you been?”
“Oh, don’t worry about me dear, I’m all right.” Like she cared.
“Puuupy, what did he do to you?”
During the time that it took me to explain what had happened, it started to rain again and rain hard. Hell Nino was letting me know that he was not finished with me yet. My wife told me that there was no way that she was letting me into HER house until I washed myself and Alfred. Outside! In the rain! The cold......cold, Hell Nino rain.