Gardening Daydreams

There's nothing like a blustery March snowstorm to make a Midwestern heart beat for gardening season. It's a little to soon for me to start seeds yet. This is what my garden look like right now. I never did get it tilled under in the fall. Bad, bad, bad!

Can't wait for the return of those luscious raspberries!

I started seeds last year at this time and had a jungle in my kitchen well before it was safe to move them outdoors. So for now I'm only planting ideas... things I want to try out this year.

Here are a few I've found interesting -- things I've collected during the long winter off Pinterest, Facebook, and a few other places around the web. Let me know if you've tried them, or what new ideas you have in mind for your garden this year.

Adding Epsom Salt - it's supposed to have wonderful qualities as a garden supplement. Watering with about 2 tablespoons to a gallon of water, the magnesium and sulfate is supposed to give you lusher, lovelier plants. I wonder if that's the basis of the little blue crystals in so much plant food nowadays? Hmm... I'll have to check the label.

Definitely planting Strawflowers (Helichrysum)! You have to start them indoors - and soon! They are such fun to grow, and if you pick them before they open fully and dry them upside down, they keep for years for crafts or colorful bouquets. I bundle them into bouquets, wrap a string or rubber band around the bunch of stems, and hang them on a nail. I have a box or two of them around here.  Ah -- here they are. These are five or six years old so they're getting faded, but I can still think of uses for them. Oh, look, there's some statice in there, too. Nice!

Understanding more gardening science. It's nice to get a fuller understanding of things like nitrogen levels and which soil amendments are needed and why. I understand a fair amount of that now, but there's always more to learn, like how to tell if my corn has a potassium deficiency. I found this link interesting for that: The Field Position

Here's a coffee-lover's tip for seed-starting I read on FB:  "I use recycled plastic bakery containers and coffee cups with lids to start seeds outdoors. Poke holes in the bottom and add potting mix. After the seeds sprout, remove lid. Start sunflowers in large coffee cups so room for larger root system. I have had good luck sprouting seeds using these recycled items." What kinds of containers do you use to start your seeds? Have you found ideas that turned out to be kind of useless? Which ones worked?

Another idea I liked was to place a coffee filter in the bottom of a flower pot. It allows for excess drainage, but keeps the dirt inside where it belongs. For bigger pots, I could lay a piece of burlap or woven feed bag in the bottom. Gonna try that!

Last year I blogged about Starting a Garden Journal. If you didn't do that, now's a great time to start! And I'll most definitely be using my Substitute for a Backyard Greenhouse again.
 
The last new thing I hope to do this year is learn to can potatoes. I can everything from green beans to venison, but I've never canned potatoes.

All this planning and daydreaming! I think that's why we call them garden "plots", don't you? 

What new plots & plans do you have for a little green thumb activity this year? Have you started yet?

Naomi
http://www.naomimusch.com