While the groundhog says winter will last another 6 weeks, the other day it was warm enough to melt most of the snow in our yard, and begin a raging torrent of thaw runoff in our little stream-fed pond. Granted, today it is back to being 10F and icy, but it got me pondering spring plantings and such. :)

Recently, I found a nifty little printout that can be used to help plan and organize your springtime plantings, or at the very least, get a rough idea of what to plant when, and hastily printed out a copy for myself on nice high-bond paper. You try to figure out the date of last frost, and each page of the pamphlet has a list of the types of plants that can be started “frost-minus #” week. So if week Zero is when the last frost hits, week -1 is when you’d have flowers and stuff in the cold frame. Week -2 has lettuce seeds going into a frame, while Week -10 (ten weeks before the last frost) you can start slow-growing things like beans indoors. It’s really really handy, and is small enough that each quarter-page simply lists a bunch of plants to plant. It can be a handy reference to put in your pocket, or synchronize to a proper “Calendar” hung on the wall.

Of course, then, as most web-browsing happens, I closed that page and moved on to other things… and can not find the cool little pamphlet to link here! D’oh!

However, I can encourage folks (and myself) that while the snows may still be swirling around the garden this time of year, it’s the perfect time to get your seed catalogs out, and organizing your garden supplies. Before you know it, it’s time to get things stuck in dirt! You’ll thank yourself later, when harvesting abundant crops!

Another nice resource, which I DID manage to copy down, is the following link about plants that you should really consider growing. The woman who writes that blog lives within an hour drive or two from me, and thus has some great advice that is locally relevant. Go check it out, and adapt things to your local climate! I plan on trying a few items she lists, which I’d never considered before, such as Rice and Amaranth.

I was also pleasantly surprised to see quite a lot of plants listed that either grow naturally around me, or are already part of our seasonal plantings.

http://sharonastyk.com/2009/02/10/20-plants-you-should-consider-growing/

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(Secret unrelated fun: sharkify!

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