Thoughts turn to gardening

As the snow piles up and the wind chill goes down, my thoughts turn to gardening.

Hi, I'm Jean Pocha and have been learning from our vegetable garden in Helmville for the past 30 years. This time of year I really want some fresh veggies and that spurs me to start planning the garden. With seeds ordered in December, I've got all the "basics". Now I'm getting the calendar out and deciding when I can plant things where, and what that means about when to start some seeds in the house.

When I look at online seed catalogs, they all are experiencing high order volume and delays up to 30 days in shipping. I'm pretty confident that there are enough seeds for everyone, we just want to make sure and order in a timely way.

Over the years we have built a greenhouse, and a hoophouse that extends the gardening season. Because of these, I have learned about staggered planting times. In order to plant in the greenhouse in late March or early April, I need six weeks to grow a broccoli or lettuce transplant, so I better thaw out some potting soil right NOW. We have fluorescent shop lights set up over the porch workbench (okay, it's a plant bench). This winter I noticed that the hydroponic lettuce grew a lot better next to the window, so I think it's time to find some new fluorescent tubes, maybe I can even find the old style grow lights. Those few jobs will get me a chance to play in the dirt while the wind is howling outside.

Today I was gutting a Winter Squash (butternut from a Farmer's Market in Spokane) for dinner and noticing the seeds. "Ah, seed saving?" I asked myself. Then I remembered two things: 1. Butternut squash won't grow in our garden. 2. I asked the grower if the squash was grown with other varieties nearby. He said, "yes, don't try to save the seed and expect to get Butternut squash". In my seed saving studies, I've learned that Squash varieties need to be separated by three miles to produce pure seed. For anyone interested in learning about saving garden seed, this is the time to figure it out so we can plan our gardens accordingly.

One resource is the Seed Savers Exchange website seedsavers.org. Under "Programs & Resources", they have a printable guide. In future articles I plan to go over a few of the main things like; how pollination, planting distance and plant life cycle affect seed saving.

If you want to get in on some garden chatter, feel free to look up the facebook group "Blackfoot Valley Gardeners". Thanks for reading!