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Enjoy
your peas on a fence or wire trellis where they can climb. To encourage
lots of bloom, you can cut the flowering stems and more will follow
until spring begins turning to summer.
Fertilize
the plants when they get about six inches tall with a good flower food
at the rate recommended for annuals.
Start
an Asparagus Bed –It Lasts Years
For
about the same effort that you invest in planting any other vegetable,
you can start a bed of asparagus that produces for ten or twenty years.
The
best place for this perennial is in a sunny corner of the garden that
drains well and that won’t be in your way as you work the rest of the
garden. If possible, raise the bed in clay soils to 12 to 18 inches high
for drainage. The key to a long-lived productive plot is good drainage.
Plant
crowns now; set them in trenches about 5 inches deep in sandy soil, or 3
to 4 inches deep in clay soil. (If you start with transplants, wait
until after frost to plant because young plants are sensitive to cold.)
As
the plants grow, fill in the trench. Mulch with pinestraw or compost to
suppress weeds that would sap productivity.
Spear
tenderness depends on fast growth and moisture. If spring is dry, be
sure to water.
Don’t
try to harvest new spears this year. Let the ferny tops grow tall and
develop a strong root system. Next year begin harvesting by cutting for
about six weeks in the spring and then leave the planting alone to
rejuvenate.
Houseplants
Need Help?
By
now many houseplants are tired of the house! Give them a refreshing
shower in the bathroom. This cleans the leaves of dust and possibly a
few insects. If you have a removable showerhead, spray the underside of
the leaves, too. Cut away dead foliage and trim brown tips from leaves.
The exception to this bath is violets and other plants with fuzzy
leaves. Instead, dust them with a soft brush.
To Beat
Pests, Spray Oil Now
Beat
garden pests that spend winter hiding in the crevices of tree bark or on
the underside of leaves. They may be in the egg stage, which makes them
nearly impossible to see. No matter what their stage of life cycle, your
chance of killing them is rarely better than it is now.
Kill
them where they hide with a spray of dormant oil, so named because it’s
applied when plants are dormant in winter. The oils suffocate the pests
by coating their skin. Spray the trunk, branches, stems, and both sides
of the foliage thoroughly to kill mites, mealybugs, scale, aphids,
psyllids, whiteflies, and other pests.
Follow
label directions carefully because some plants, especially evergreens,
can be sensitive. Spray when the weather is mild; the label gives
temperature guidelines and may list sensitive plant species. If it gets
too warm there is "summer oil," which is lighter.
Be
careful to spray deciduous fruit such as apples, blueberries, pears, and
peaches before the flower or leaf buds begin to open.
A
careful spray this month will spare you lots of grief later.
Vegetable
Garden
If
you still have dead plants in the garden, pull them up and get them out
of there now because they are providing shelter for insects that will
pounce on your vegetables as soon as you plant. When the ground allows,
till the soil to expose pupae of squash vine borers and other damaging
pests to killing freezes.
In
South Alabama, it is time to set out transplants of broccoli, lettuce,
cabbage, collards, and other cool season vegetables.
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