Backyard Wisdom

Gardeners Wishing Cold Weather Away

Last weekend was warm and sunny at my house in central Alabama.  I know that I was out busy in my garden, and I know that a lot of other folks were busy as well.  I cleaned out some raised beds and containers that I used for vegetables last year.  I added some wonderful compost to most of these as well.  It really is a joy to shovel rich, crumbly compost from what was a huge pile of plant clippings and leaves last summer.

But I didn't get too crazy.  I ignored the tomato plants at local home improvement store.  There are more frosts ahead I fear before winter finally bids us good-bye.

Mallory Kelley, a regional Extension home grounds agent, recently added a very informative post to the Alabama Cooperative Extension System Home Grounds blog.  Check out her suggestions on some chores to tackle in your Alabama garden this month.

Learn More About Alabama’s Master Gardeners

In addition to hosting Backyard Wisdom as part of my work for the Alabama Cooperative Extension System,  I am also a certified Alabama Master Gardener.    I enjoyed my class hours where I learned about everything from soil structure to plant propagation.  But the best part of being a Master Gardener is the volunteer work I get to do in my community.

To learn more about what Master Gardeners are doing in Alabama and more about classes, check out the latest Backyard Wisdom podcast here.

Backyard Wisdom Goes on the Road

Well, not truly on the road, but rather a jaunt down the Information Superhighway to Texas and a blog called Red, White & Grew. Red, White & Grew promotes the victory garden revival and is written by Pamela Price, a freelance writer based in San Antonio.

Pamela and I met via Twitter and have enjoyed exchanging garden information and other sustainable living tidbits for about the last six months.

Recently, she asked me to be a guest blogger for Red, White & Grew, and I jumped at the chance. Specifically, she asked me to share with her readers how Cooperative Extension can help them be better gardeners. You will find my post here.

Is It Time Yet?

Gardeners across the South are trying to look beyond current chilly temperatures and decide when they can really get busy in their vegetable gardens.  Today at Backyard Wisdom, we have our friend Chuck Browne sitting in as a guest blogger.  Chuck is the Lee County Extension Coordinator for the Alabama Cooperative Extension System.  Read what he's got to say about rushing the season below.

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Judging from the calls and requests we've received for backyard vegetable gardening information, it looks like a lot of people are ready for spring. That's great, but don't try and rush our warm summer seasons just yet.

Realistically, we are about 8 weeks away from being able to plant warm season vegetables such as beans, squash, cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers. Extension Publication ANR-063 "Planting Guide for Home Gardening in Alabama" is a great reference on when to plant veggies from Asparagus to Zucchini. This handy resource lists days to maturity, which varieties to plant, planting dates for both spring and fall seasons, how many seeds to plant per 100 feet of row and how far apart to space each plant. It and a lot of other great gardening publications can be found here on the web.

My all time favorite early spring, cool season plants to set out in February are green snow peas and potatoes. Snow peas can go out right now and they grow very fast. Pods can be eaten raw out of the garden or stir friend. The fresh picked flower is sweet and can even change folks' minds who don't like peas. The same is true for freshly harvested asparagus.

Later this month if it ever dries out, Irish potatoes can be set out. They take a little longer to mature than peas but should be ready in May. Last year we had my friend Patrick Millers' 2 little boys "helping" us harvest the new potatoes right out of the garden. Watching those kids scrambling around gathering them up as fast as they could was better than the fresh cooked potatoes we enjoyed later that day.

Most people usually think of summer as the only time we can grow vegetables in our gardens. The fact is that normally, we can grow some kind of edible vegetable all 12 months of the year here in east central Alabama. Take advantage of our unique climate to produce backyard vegetables all year long.

Chuck

Tree Planting Time In Alabama

National Arbor Day is celebrated the last Friday in April. But April is not the best time to plant trees in Alabama and the Deep South. Here in Alabama, the last week of February is designated Arbor Week. Late winter is a good time to plant trees here. Newly planted trees have several months to establish roots before the heat of summer sets in.

Dr. Ken Tilt, a horticulture specialist with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, visited Backyard Wisdom recently, and we talked about Arbor Day and the impact it's had on the nation. Ken also shared some of his favorite trees for the home landscape. You can hear Ken here at Auburn University's iTunes site.

Growing a More Sustainable Lawn

People who know me very well or who have been reading this blog for any length of time know that I am not a big turf person. I think I inherited the trait from my farmer daddy. Farm work kept him so busy that he wanted a home lawn that was as low maintenance as possible. His choice? Centipedegrass. The lawn is still in place after more than 50 years of mowing. I am not sure that it has ever been fertilized.

My family lives in the home my husband's grandparents built on 6 acres more than 50 years ago. About four of those acres were originally pasture and were planted mostly likely in common bermudagrass. One small patch near the house is in centipedegrass, but the majority of the lawn is in zoysiagrass. Dr. Beth Guertal, who is a turf scientist at Auburn University, told me years ago that it's probably a variety called 'Matrella.'

My husband and I both work full-time and we have a young daughter so, like my daddy ,we want a lawn that is as low maintenance as possible. Mow it. Fertilize it sometimes, but not often. Now, it does not look like a hole at Augusta National, but it suits our family. There is ample, healthy lawn for my daughter, her friends and the dogs to play on. We have made choices that fit our lifestyle.

Who knew that meant we were growing a sustainable lawn? We live with the weeds or hand pull the ones that bother us. We let the clippings stay on the lawn to return nutrients to the soil. We don't have an irrigation system so when the drought set in several years ago, we let it go dormant. Yes-I mean we let it go brown in the middle of summer. But you know what? When the rains came in the fall, it greened back up.

These are just a couple of things that Dr. David Han, a turf specialist with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, and I talked about recently when we visited more in-depth about sustainable lawns.

To hear more from Dr. Han about making your lawn more sustainable, listen to him on Backyard Wisdom here.