Back from another visit with my brother in Cedar and I’m amazed at how far we are ahead of the mid-Island.
The tulips on the balcony are at least four inches tall and the daffodils are showing yellow buds. I’ve seen some daffodils fully out just a couple of blocks away.
There is not a sign of the tulips I planted in Herb’s big pots and the daffodils are less that a foot tall, with tight green buds. Poor souls!
We are living in a little bit of paradise here on the Peninsula!
My eldest daughter is leaving for Ontario to visit her daughter on Wednesday. I called her this morning to suggest she take a big bouquet of daffodils with her to cheer Sheila up, surrounded as she is, by acres of snow and more snow in the forecast.
This has to be the best place in Canada to live (I think)!
That yellow hibiscus I keep raving about is doing it again.
Another beautiful bloom which insists on keeping its face toward the window. Although I move it around to look into the room every day It stubbornly keeps turning its back and smiling out the window. Oh well, I don’t really mind. It must have flowered sporadically almost every month this past year, so how dare I complain.
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By the time you read this it will be March, so maybe it would be a good idea to think about planting a few vegetables.
It is too early for most things but you could plant peas as soon as you can get on the soil without compacting it. Some bone meal sprinkled in the planting hole before seeding is a good idea, followed by a scattering on Dolomite lime on top of the ground after covering the seeds.
Even before planting you might erect something for them to climb, so you don’t have to avoid stepping on something else you’ve put in, while erecting a scaffold of some sort. I’ve done it both ways, and believe me, putting up a climbing wall first is a much better idea.
I really hadn’t any idea I knew such nasty words until I tromped on a patch of early peas just peeking through the ground. Fortunately I didn’t say them out loud.
My neighbour, Hazel, thought I was a nice woman and would have fallen over if she had heard what I was thinking.
Other things you could seed might be broad beans, corn salad, kale, pac choi and radishes. If you were to cover these with Reemay cloth, or a plastic tunnel you could also plant collards and spinach.
Or you could wait until spring actually arrives and spend your time planning instead of planting. Garden catalogues are available, and its a lot warmer inside than out.
Helen Lang has been the Peninsula News Review’s garden columnist for more than 30 years.
