Springing forward today

The first day of Daylight Savings Time. Today is the first day of Daylight Savings Time. We now have an extra hour of daylight to get chores done outside the house. Another added bonus is that every day from now until June 21, we gain another minute of daylight each evening. This should give all gardens as well as all gardeners a boost of excitement and a burst of energy as we enjoy more ultra-violet rays from the sun. With days getting longer, this is a sure sign of spring.

Plenty of signs that spring is near. With days getting longer by one minute each evening and today’s arrival of daylight saving time paving the way into spring’s coming, the flowers of hyacinth, daffodils and jonquils and frogs croaking out their serenade to spring at the nearby creek, grass has a subtle shade of green. Heart shaped leaves of the American violets appear at the edge of the garden plot. Birds are more active and robins are plentiful on the lawn. Bees buzz around as they scout the jonquils and hyacinths. Trees are showing buds and early signs of life as everything in nature points to the soon approach of spring.

Making a mandarin orange cake. This is a great cake with few ingredients and easy to prepare. You will need one box yellow cake mix, half cup water, one can mandarin oranges with liquid, two eggs, half cup Crisco oil, one teaspoon orange flavoring. Mix all these ingredients together and pour into a 13x9x2 inch baking dish or pan sprayed with Baker’s Joy. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes. Top the baked cake with one large can crushed pineapple, one three-ounce package vanilla instant pudding, one carton Cool Whip, half teaspoon orange flavoring. Sprinkle pudding mix over crushed pineapple, add orange flavoring and Cool Whip and spread over cake.

Planting Irish potatoes in March. Irish potatoes are a root crop that requires a long growing season of at least 90 days. Planting in March assures a harvest before Dog Days of July begin. They perform well in cold weather and should sprout in two or three weeks. Seed potatoes are already available in hardwares and seed stores and are sold by the bag or by the pound. You can choose from Irish Cobbler, Kennebec, Red Pontiac, Yukon Gold. When planting potatoes, always use whole potatoes and please do not cut them into pieces because this promotes rot and mold and exposure to insects and pests such as rodents and groundhogs. Apply a layer of peat moss in the bottom of furrow and set seed potatoes a foot or more apart. Cover them with another layer of peat moss and hill up soil on each side of the furrow and tamp down soil with a hoe blade for good soil contact. Wait until potatoes sprout and side dress with an application of Plant-tone organic vegetable food on each side of the row and hill up soil to cover the Plant-Tone. Apply Plant-Tone every 15 days.

Planting cole family crops of cabbage and broccoli. The plants of broccoli and cabbage are now available at hardwares, nurseries, and seed shops as well as Lowe’s, Home Depot and garden department at Walmart. They will thrive in the cool soil of March. You can set them out in rows or beds. Most plants come in four and six packs. As you select them, check to be sure plants have blue-green stems that are a sign the plants are healthy. Don’t buy plants with brown or dry stems because they are damped off and stunted. Good, proven varieties of broccoli are Dicicco, Green Comet, Packman, Bonanza, Raabm and Premium Crop. Good choices of cabbage are Round Dutch, Stonehead, and Jersey Wakefield.

A full worm moon is tomorrow night. The full moon of the month of March will be tomorrow night and it is names “Full Worm Moon.” It will shine down on bare fields and meadows and woodlands filled with bare gray tree limbs with tiny leaf buds heralding one of the signs of spring. Worm is a fitting name for this moon because earthworms are now coming closer to the surface of the soil in the garden plot.

A huge inventory of cool weather vegetables for early spring garden. As we move into the month of March, the cool soil can play host to a whole multitude of cool weather vegetables that will produce a harvest long before it is time for warm weather vegetable planting time. Any time the soil is workable in March, cool weather plants and see can be sown and set out in the cool sod of early spring. The choice is virtually endless and includes cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower plants, spring onion sets, Irish potatoes, English garden peas, kale, spinach, curly mustard, carrots, radish, lettuce, and beets. When these vegetables are planted this month, it will allow plenty of time to make a harvest before warm weather arrives.

The greens of early spring are the sweetest. Green can be sown in autumn and in spring, but greens harvested in the spring are sweetest and tenderest. They produce a quicker harvest and should be harvested before they flower into seed. Greens planted now will be ready for a harvest in 50 to 60 days. You can sow mixed greens and the seed stores or hardware will mix in an ratio you desire.

You can purchase flowering bulbs of summer now. The summer flowering bulbs of dalias and glads can now be purchased. Many people call them glad bulbs but they are actually called “corms”. Summer flowering bulbs can be purchased at Lowe’s, Home Depot, nurseries, hardwares, and Walmart. Bulbs of dahlias are also called tubers. Both glads and dahlias come on tall and short varieties.

Spring onions will thrive in cool soil of March. The cool soil of the March garden plot is just the right environment for setting out spring onion sets. You can choose from red, white, and yellow sets. A pound of sets costs around three dollars. Set them out in a furrow about four inches deep and set onions about four inches apart. Apply a layers of peat moss in bottom of the furrow before setting out onions and then cover onions with another layer of peat moss before hilling up soil on both sides of onion sets. After they sprout in about three weeks, side dress with Plant-Tone organic vegetable food and hill up soil on both sides of the onion sets. Feed onion sets every 15 days and continue to hill them up.

Thinking of a four o’clock season. It is still quite a few weeks before we can plant the seed of four o’clocks for a colorful summer of blooms. Most hardwares, seed shops, Lowe’s, Home Depot, and Walmart already have packets of four o’clocks in stock. Walmart features the Burpee varieties of speckled and marble varieties for less than two dollars per packet. There is also a rainbow of Zinnias in all color including “Envy” a green zinnia. Surly the plan specialists that developed a green zinnia like “Envy” ought to be capable of developing a blue variety of zinnia and appropriately call it “Blue Moon”!

Robins have taken over the front yard. We have seen robins all winter and several during Christmas time. We believe most of them spend winter with us and find plenty of warm hideaways to harbor in, as well as plenty of food to sustain them. After all, how many hard freezes do we get all winter? Surely there are enough wintering insects to keep robins well-fed and healthy. May they live long and prosper during all our Carolina winters!

Hoe Hoe Hoedown: The good ole days! – Husband: “I’d like to know whatever became of the old-fashioned girls who fainted when a man kissed them.” Wife: “What I’d like to know is what happened to the old-fashioned men that made them faint!”

A double portion! – After going to a birthday party, Bobby’s mom said, “I hope you did not ask for a second piece of cake.” “No” said Bobby “I only asked Mrs. Johnson for the recipe so you could make one like it and she gave me two more piece’s just of her own accord!”

If the shoe fits – Mother: “How could you be so rude as to tell your sister she’s stupid. Tell her you are sorry.” Son: “Sis, I’m sorry you’re stupid!”

Ronda: “My husband was named Man of the Year.” Wanda: “Well, that goes to show you what kind of year it’s been so far!”

.neFileBlock {
margin-bottom: 20px;
}
.neFileBlock p {
margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
}
.neFileBlock .neFile {
border-bottom: 1px dotted #aaa;
padding-bottom: 5px;
padding-top: 10px;
}
.neFileBlock .neCaption {
font-size: 85%;
}