Our Right to Self Reliance

Although February is the shortest month on the calendar, it can feel like the longest month of the year for those of us with the gardening bug.  Today I’m thinking of paperwhites and patience, and ways to feed that little flame of hope that spring will indeed come.

Self reliance often seems to call for self discipline.  By this time of year though, particularly for those of us in the northern part of the country, the cold temperatures, dreary skies day after day and dormant vegetation is just getting old.  There have been some bright days in the past couple of weeks, and what that mostly does for me is make me complusively sort, file and recategorize my seed bank.  Too soon, too soon!  Not yet…another month, at least, before I can even seed in some tomatoes and eggplants to start growing in time for setting out in my climate zone.

Growing some sprouts can help, and if you have a kitty it’s a simple way to provide a little joy.  Just find some whole wheat, called wheat berries, being sold in bulk bins.  If they have been sealed into jars or bags, they are much less likely to sprout than those that have been stored in large paper sacks.  Soak them over night in warm water and spread them over about a half inch of almost any kind of soil; sprinkle soil over the top of them evenly just until you can’t see them.  Keep in a warm, sunny place and in about three days you should have kitty nibblable wheat grass.  It won’t last long, perhaps a couple of weeks before it starts to yellow and the kitty will lose interest in it.  But in the mean time, it’s a tiny reminder of a lawn.

Forcing paper whites is a longstanding winter tradition.  Not only do they promise spring, they also smell lovely.  A dish of paperwhites in a kitchen window that looks out over a dreary winter landscape can make even washing dishes a cheerful pass time.  There are simple directions for forcing paper-whites available at the National Gardening Association website, and I ran across an interesting twist to the practice recently.  Apparently, if you feed the paperwhites alcohol —gin, vodka, whiskey, rum, tequila—it prevents them from getting tall and leggy, and falling over.  I haven’t personally tried it yet; I’m not forcing paperwhites this year because I noticed that my little pot of crocuses were coming up a couple of weeks ago (crazy things!) and one yellow one has even bloomed.  Spring will come…..

Feb. 27-28 Seeds planted now will grow poorly and yield little.
March 1-3 Favorable for planting crops bearing yield above the ground.
March 4-5 Seeds planted now tend to rot in ground.