It's a good time to start deciding what seeds you want to plant.
We have been blessed with some nice sunny winter days, and many folks are starting to get the urge to start gardening.
This is a good time to focus on digging and creating new flowerbeds or garden areas. It is also a great time to dig and prepare or improve the soil in your existing flowerbeds.
This is the time to add organic matter like sphagnum peat or some type of compost to improve and enrich your soils while removing any grass or weeds that will compete with your gardens.
In a couple of weeks, it will be time to start planting onions, potatoes, strawberries and bareroot fruit trees, grapes, raspberries and blackberries. We usually target planting of these cool-season food crops from Valentine’s Day to St. Patrick’s Day.
Those of us in the nursery and greenhouse business are here to provide you transplants or starter plants in the quantities you need and a wide selection of varieties of plant material. We gardeners have become so used to the easy access and wide selection of plants available from our local greenhouses that we sometimes miss out on the joy and wonders of plant propagation.
Instead of tackling propagation of all your plants, you may want to experiment or try a few plants from seed or cuttings so you can watch these wonders of nature work to your own child like amazement. It is even better if you have kids in the house, family or neighborhood to share this experience with. Plant some seeds this year whether it is starting some tomatoes or peppers, marigolds or zinnias in the house to transplant outdoors in April after the last freeze.
Plant seeds of vegetables like peas, green beans, corn, cantaloupes, squash or watermelon directly in the garden, after it warms up, so you can watch them germinate and grow in place in your garden. Watching whole plants grow from a single seed is a miracle we all count on, and it never ceases to be amazing.
Start your seeds in light, well-drained media directly in small pots, or sow in rows in seed flats to transplant to small pots after germinated with a couple of sets of mature leaves. Moisten the media before sowing your seeds, cover the seeds with a light layer of vermiculite, perlite or fine sphagnum, and then mist with water as needed to keep slightly moist. Make sure to provide good window or artificial light after germination to keep the seedlings from stretching or elongating.
We also can propagate our own plants by cutting. Try this out first using soft stemmed plants like coleus, begonias, geraniums or impatiens. Take a cutting off an established plant that includes a growing tip and is 3 to 6 inches long. Remove the bottom set of leaves where you will stick the cutting into well-drained soil mix or even just a small container or flat filled with perlite or vermiculite. Water in the cutting or cuttings and then mist or moisten the foliage a couple or more times a day until they sprout roots well enough to move to their own or a bigger container.
You can use a rooting powder to speed up rooting. A good rooting hormone contains IBA (Indole Butyric Acid) and stimulates root development. You also can improve and speed up rooting by creating a propagation terrarium by putting a transparent dome over the cuttings to help keep the humidity high around the cuttings or even by pulling a clear plastic bag over the cutting flat or pots to help maintain moisture around the cuttings and keep them turgid until rooted.
It is easiest to buy many or most of your plants to transplant, but I strongly encourage you to try your hand at a few plant cuttings and to sow some seeds so you can truly appreciate these most basic wonders of nature.
For more plant tips, visit The Oklahoman.
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