by Birgitt Evans, ABG Board member and Master Gardener
February is an important time in the Alameda gardening calendar. It is a time for pruning and weeding and making compost. It is a time for building soil, ordering seeds and planning the spring and summer garden. Work done now can save time and money and help target harvests so you make the most of your food garden.
Alameda Backyard Growers began offering our garden newsletter in April, 2020, in response to the pandemic and over the past eleven months we have created a data bank of knowledge for your reference. All of the articles we have written are located in the “Resources” tab on our website AlamedaBackyardGrowers.org. Here I want to highlight some articles which are particularly useful right now as you plan your 2021 gardens.
The Basics
The soil is the foundation of everything in the garden and will help to determine your success. Margie Siegal’s article, ‘Gardening 101 – Soil Preparation’ provides a great introduction – and refresher – on creating and maintaining healthy soil.
Next consider what you want to grow and when. Make a drawing of your growing space and make copies of it and make a list of what you want to grow. And then review my article on ‘Succession Planting to Maximize Your Garden Yield’ to help you work out how and when you are going to fit everything into your garden space.
If you have kids, check out Kristen Smeal’s article on the ‘Five Best Vegetables to Grow With Kids’ to help you plan your garden.
Working With Seeds
As you may have heard, ABG now has three Free Seed Libraries here in Alameda, making seeds the hot new way to start your garden. Seeds are also a lot less expensive than transplants, provide you with more choices of varieties and come in open pollinated varieties allow you to save your own seeds for the future. We have a number of articles on seed starting on our resource pages. Here are two articles to get you started.
Linda Carloni’s ‘Growing Seeds Outside’ is aimed at beginning gardeners and has good advice on what, where and how to start seeds outdoors.
My article, ‘Starting Vegetables & Herbs From Seeds’ distills my decades of working with seeds in one place and will take you step by step through the joys and rewards of planting your own seeds.
Getting Growing
Finally, here are a couple of articles that will provide you with ideas for gardening with young children and help you with your own growing.
First is Kristen Smeal’s article on ‘Fun Gardening Activities with Children’ which starts with the perennial project of weeding and then goes on to growing sprouts indoors and finally starting seeds in eggshell cups.
And finally, everyone loves tomatoes so here, from Linda Carloni, is her article ‘Three Tips for Tomato Seedlings in Alameda’ which actually has a lot more than three tips and is an excellent primer for everyone planning to grow tomatoes this summer.
Hopefully, these articles will provide ideas, inspiration and knowledge to help you have a successful gardening year!
