Things start to move in the garden this month.
Gardens are waking from their winter nap and gearing up for a busy season ahead. Some of you may have already planted the first peas of this year. I recommend Little Marvel peas for an early crop of sweet green peas. These are the ones that come in twos, instead of a single pod, so you get a larger crop from the same number of plants (not always, of course!)
I’m going to plant peas tomorrow. We are very unlikely to get frost now. It has really been a non-winter this year, which makes me nervous. The insect population is bound to be larger than usual, with no killing frosts, but we’ll deal with that when, and if, it happens.
It might make sense to pick up a tin of spray before it gets scarce — if we do get a larger than usual insect invasion. Buy the least deadly, please. We really do need every polllinating insect (bees, especially) to be available, to make sure of the largest crops possible.
Last Friday was an especially wonderful day for me. I received two marvelous bouquets and it wasn’t even my birthday!
One was a large collection of white Helleborus and the other was of mixed blossoms, including several red roses from my daughter-in-law, Donna. Talk about being spoiled — and I love it!
My dainty yellow rose, another gift, continues to bloom. It is like a florist shop in here and it smells like one too.
Heavenly.
Helen Lang has been the Peninsula News Review’s garden columnist for more than 30 years.