This is that extra day we get once every four years, but don’t get excited. There is not enough time to organize a parade anyway, so let’s just put our feet up and relax.
The first sunny day, though, maybe you’d consider attacking the vegetable beds, especially if you planted a cover crop of fall rye or other.
The idea here is to damage the crop.Broken up vegetable matter rots much more quickly than if left whole. To this add the contents of your compost pile (save some for the flower garden) and perhaps some animal manure (cow or horse, not dog or cat). Now dig it in so that when it comes time to plant your vegetable seeds, the soil is so luscious and tempting, your seeds will be rarin’ to go.
I have sweet pea seeds pre-sprouting over heat. For each type of seed, you will need some wet paper towel, a plastic bag, a label and a source of bottom heat (the top of the water heater, the top of the fridge, a place a few inches above a heat register, or an inch or more above a heating cable). Spread your seeds out on the damp paper towel making sure they aren’t touching, and fold the rest of the towelling over top. Slide (carefully) the packet of seeds into the plastic bag and set this on the top of the hot water heater.
Every couple of days after, say, four days, check to see if the seeds are sprouting.Any that are should be gently removed using a toothpick or eyebrow tweezers, and set in soil, leaving the rest to germinate in their own time (but check daily). If you unfortunately break off the fragile almost transparent, white root in trying to move the seed, abandon it, and go on to the next.
This is also a good way to check to see if the seeds you collected last year are still viable. There is nothing more frustrating than planting last year’s seeds and waiting and waiting for something to appear only to learn the one seed that turns up was a dandelion.
Helen Lang has been the Peninsula News Review’s garden columnist for more than 30 years.
