March 2004

Edible

• Make homemade seed tapes for small seeds like carrots, lettuce and beets.
  • Cut plain paper or copy paper into long one-inch wide strips
  • Mix flour and water to the consistency of gravy to make glue.
  • Using a small watercolor paintbrush, pick up a small dot of glue, and then touch the brush to a seed and place seed with glue on the paper.
  • Space the seeds on the paper according to the directions on the seed packet.
  • Air dry the tapes, roll them up and store in a plastic sandwich bag.
    
    
• Use cool white fluorescent lights to start vegetable transplants indoors. Keep the lights three to four inches above the seedlings as they grow. Replace lights every year.
  
  
• Sow seeds indoors for broccoli, cauliflower, sage, chives, dill and thyme in early March and for tomatoes and peppers after mid-March.
  
  
• Sow peas, lettuce, mustard, turnips, radishes and onion sets directly into the soil.
  
  
• Keep rabbits out of your spring vegetable garden. Commercial products sprayed on plants for rabbit control are effective for only a short time and have to be reapplied. A fence of three-foot high chicken wire with the bottom six inches bent at a right angle and covered with soil offers the best protection.

Ornamental

• Brighten up your old wood containers by painting them with a wood stain. Stains come in a variety of colors.
  
  
• Have your soil tested. For a list of labs and instructions on how to take a soil sample, call 773-233-0476.
  
  
• Rake your lawn to remove accumulated leaves and twigs. Raking will allow air and light to get to the soil allowing the grass to grow.
  
  
• Pull away mulch around perennials as temperatures warm. Be prepared to return mulch if cold temperatures threaten.
  
  
• Prune back the butterfly bush to eight to ten inches. Even if the bush dies back to the ground, new shoots will emerge from the roots.
  
  
• Cut back the foliage of ornamental grasses to about four to six inches before new growth starts. Delaying this pruning can retard the crown’s warming and delay new growth for two to three weeks.
  
  
• Divide most perennials in the spring as new growth begins. Dig carefully around the plant and remove the entire clump. Using a knife or a spade, divide the clump into four to five inch square sections. Smaller sections may not flower during the first year of growth. Replant immediately and water well.
  
  
• Do not sow grass seed this month. Seed sown now will not germinate until temperatures warm and will most likely end up as bird feed.